Westport public safety officer shoots 24-year-old man

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — On Sunday, Captain Jake Becchina of the Kansas City Police Department (KCPD) Jahquan Robinson was the man shot and killed in Westport earlier that morning.

His 24^th His birthday was the same day he was shot.

However, on Monday, KCPD spokeswoman Alayna Gonzalez said the person had just fired when a Westport security officer arrived at the scene and fired the shots that struck him.

“Me and my friends heard it. They took pictures of the blood on the sidewalk,” Westport resident Ellen Andriani said in an interview with FOX4 on Monday.

Andriani went out in Westport on Saturday night. The blood she spoke of was right outside the Taco Bell Cantina at the corner of Westport Road and Broadway. Bullets also struck the Mid Coast Modern home goods store east of the intersection.

“At night, the energy can be more or less really fun,” Andriani said when asked if she feels safe going out at night in Westport. “I like it here, and sometimes friends say to me, ‘Why are you hanging out in Westport? It’s just so bad,’ and honestly, I have a lot more good memories than bad. When something like that happens, we say, ‘Oh, come on, man.’ I don’t understand why this keeps happening.”

While Andriani is still in the area, other people like Bill Lindquist say they are sad that something like this happened, but he is not surprised either.

“It keeps happening and it seems like there are no answers,” Lindquist said in an interview with FOX4 on Monday. “Westport is a beautiful area. It’s very nice to walk around and stuff. It just seems like at night, on the weekends, I don’t know what happens, it erupts into chaos.”

A Westport Public Safety officer was detained for further questioning on Sunday but released. On Monday, Gonzalez confirmed that he was the same officer who fired the shots that struck Robinson.

The Westport Entertainment District released a statement about the incident:

“The Westport Entertainment District is grateful to its Westport Public Safety and KCPD officers who courageously responded to an active shooter outside the Entertainment District boundaries at 1:20 a.m. Sunday morning and saved lives. The active shooter was unresponsive at the scene and later died. Unfortunately, shootings can happen anywhere, but we are fortunate to have officers trained to respond to and combat threats to public safety.”