KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) A 38-year-old man who previously served time in prison for aggravated robbery and other crimes has been charged with capital murder in Kansas in connection with the fatal shooting of a sheriff's deputy in Kansas City, Kansas.
Shawn M. Harris also is charged with violating a Kansas law that prohibits people with felony records from possessing weapons. The charges were filed Monday in Wyandotte County District Court by District Attorney Mark Dupree Sr. Harris made his first court appearance Tuesday, with District Judge Daniel Cahill setting his bond at $2 million. He is jailed in neighboring Johnson County.
Authorities say Harris opened fire Saturday when Wyandotte County Deputy Elijah Ming and a Kansas City, Kansas, police officer approached his home after receiving a report from a woman living there that he had threatened friends who were helping her move out. Ming was hit multiple times and died hours later at a hospital.
Authorities said it was a routine “standby” call, where police go to keep the peace for someone.
“We do thousands of these types of calls a year,” Kansas City, Kansas, Police Chief Karl Oakman said during a news conference Tuesday.
Dupree said he will confer with Ming's family before deciding within the next 10 days whether to pursue a death sentence. The only alternative sentence would be life in prison with no possibility of parole.
Nine men are on death row in Kansas. But the state hasn't executed anyone since June 1965, when the sentence was carried out by hanging instead of lethal injection.
The state's death penalty defense unit has been appointed to represent Harris because he could not afford to hire an attorney. Chief Capital Defender Mark Manna declined comment Tuesday.
Harris was paroled in Kansas in October 2023 after pleading guilty to seven felony charges in 2012 and 2013 in Kansas and Missouri, according to records available online.
The crimes included aggravated robbery, attempted aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and felony theft in Wyandotte County and felony tampering with a motor vehicle in Lafayette County, Missouri, east of Kansas City. He was taken from Kansas to Missouri in 2013 and pled guilty to an assault charge while serving time there. He returned to Kansas in 2021.