KANSAS CITY, Mo. — As Robert West flipped though photo albums, he remembered the good times when West said his friend and former roommate, Mohammed Whitaker, looked happy.
“To me, you know, I’m his family, the closest thing he has here,” West said.
The smiling picture, West said, is a far cry from the look he saw on Whitaker’s face as police arrested him Thursday night outside his home.
“To me he looked, I don’t know, looked bewildered. I don’t know what to say, he just did not look like the Mohammed I know. He looked differed. He looked odd,” said West.
What’s even more odd according to West is that the man who he lived with for the past year, and someone he loved like a nephew, is now charged as the shooter causing terror in “The Triangle.”
“It never came a time where I thought he would harm me or anyone in the home. I don’t see him as shooting up cars and stuff. I never thought he would do that. But apparently he did,” said West.
He said Whitaker moved out about a month-and-a-half ago, right about when the shootings first started. Looking back, West said he sensed something was wrong.
“He’s not a bad guy, he’s just made some awfully bad decision. I wish I could find a way to help him. It’s like I say, it’s all a shock. It’s really like… surreal. Because that’s not him. He’s out of my reach now because he’s in trouble and I don’t know no way to help him,” West said.
West said he will stand behind Whitaker, but he also admitted he knew Whitaker had guns in the home, an issue of contention for them which West says eventually led to them going their separate ways.
