KANSAS CITY, Kan. — A Kansas City, Kan., teenager has died after being shot following a day filled with high school graduation parties.
Police said it happened just before 10 p.m. Saturday in the 2900 block of N. Allis Street in KCK.
Family members and friends have identified the victim as 18-year-old Stephon Egans.
They told FOX 4 Egans attended Wyandotte High School and although he didn’t graduate this month, said he was celebrating with friends earlier in the day at several graduation parties up the street from his family’s home.
Egans’ cousin, Marais Harris, said he was more like a son to her, as he’d lived under her roof for some time. She recounted getting a phone call from her father as he delivered the devastating news.
“’Stephon just got shot in the head,’” Harris remembered her dad saying. “And when he told me that, all I could do was drop the phone and my heart went to my feet.”
“What can you do but break down?” she continued, “and just ask the Lord to just help you because there’s nothing else you can do.”
She said Egans was funny, loved music and had a lot of friends. She said he used to play football and ran track as a kid.
“Right now, I am numb,” Harris said. “I don’t know how I’m standing here talking to you. But I am numb. I feel like a part of my life just went away.”
Harris said while her family doesn’t know for sure who pulled the trigger, they think they know how things escalated and believe the killing could’ve been prevented.
Harris said they heard Egans was arguing with someone over money when the gunman shot him execution-style in the street outside where the graduation parties had taken place just hours earlier.
“For someone to just take his life like that,” Harris said, “over a little bit of money… There is no amount of money in this world that’s going to make me kill somebody and take their life.”
One neighbor who asked FOX 4 not use her name, said she witnessed the aftermath of the shooting and ran to Egans’ side.
“I began to just pray over him,” she said, “and ask God to give him strength and to let him hold on until paramedics have arrived.”
The certified nursing assistant and mother said it was second nature to help.
“I just wanted to give him comfort as he was lying there,” she said, “and try to assure him that everything was going to be okay.”
The witness was saddened Sunday to hear the teen later died.
Now Egans’ family is asking the community for change.
“Now it’s time for everybody to stand up,” Harris said, “and take back our young children to show that, okay, we want our futures to be something.”
KCK police said Sunday afternoon they have not arrested anyone for this fatal shooting and they do not have any suspect description to publicly release yet.
If you know anything, call Crime Stoppers at (816) 474-TIPS.
