This is a developing story. KCUR will be updating with details as they become available.
Officers found two men and one woman dead in a parking lot just south of the intersection at 57th Street and Prospect Avenue in Kansas City, Missouri, around 4:30 a.m. Sunday, according to Kansas City police.
Five others were transported to area hospitals with non-life-threatening gunshot injuries.
The motive for the shooting remains unknown, said Jake Becchina with the KCPD.
"Detectives continue to investigate and attempt to identify person(s) of interest," he said. They are questioning the survivors of the shooting, witnesses and collecting evidence from the scene.
The story quickly gained national attention, with major networks reporting on the night of violence in a city ranked among the most violent in the country.
The KCPD has not released names of victims, but The Kansas City Star is reporting family members identified the two male victims as Nikko Manning, 22, and Camden Brown, 27. The third victim is Jasity "Jas" Strong, who turned 28 on her birthday, Sunday.
Mayor Quinton Lucas first sent his condolences to the families of the slain in a tweet.
"A dark cloud of death"
Rosilyn Temple has been going to homicide scenes for the last ten years, following the murder of her 26-year-old son in 2011. She was on the scene of the shooting at 5 a.m. Sunday, even before homicide detectives arrived.
Temple and members of her organization, KC Mothers in Charge, show up at homicides to provide support and to console grieving family and friends.
"I don't even ask names, and I didn't this morning," she said. "But what I saw is what I've seen almost every day this month — a mother and father on the ground in tears, trying to make sense of the loss of their baby."
As founder of the anti-violence group, Temple, who is Black, said the last couple of years have been some of the most demoralizing in all the years she's been doing this work. The Black community and all communities of color, are killing their own, she said.
"It feels like a dark cloud of death has fallen over our communities," she said. "Until we step up and deal with this senseless violence, we're only going to see things get worse."
As of June 23, there were 91 homicides in Kansas City, according to KCPD. That's 20 more than there were at this time last year.
In addition to the three victims from the shooting at 57th Street and Prospect Avenue, a 17-year-old boy, Ricky Monroe, died from gunshot wounds a few hours earlier Sunday. Officers responded to a call on a shooting in the 3600 block of Michigan Avenue around 2 a.m. Sunday. When they arrived, they found Monroe unresponsive in a vehicle. Monroe was taken to the hospital where he later died from the injuries, according to a statement from the KCPD.
Temple said society has become tolerant of gun violence and guns as a part of everyday life. She said was recently filling up her car with gas on Eastwood Trafficway in Kansas City, Missouri, when a young man came into the store carrying a gun under his arm. Temple said regardless of gun laws that permit open carry of firearms, private businesses can, and should, prohibit people from openly carrying guns on their property.
"There's no reason this young man needed to bring this gun into that store," Temple said. "Unless he was anticipating or expecting violence to occur. We're allowing these activities to go on."
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