Raytown Walmart is scene of second fatal police shooting when officer kills armed man
Raytown MO April 23 2020
An off-duty Raytown police officer shot and killed a man Saturday night when the man allegedly walked into a Walmart and pointed a handgun toward the checkout area, according to the Missouri State Highway Patrol.
Willie Hampton, 37, of Kansas City, was fatally shot by the officer about 8:10 p.m. just inside one of the store entrances at the Walmart Supercenter at 10300 E. 350 Highway, police and a Walmart spokesman said.
Citing its preliminary investigation, the highway patrol said Hampton pointed the gun in a “threatening manner” at the checkout area. The officer, who was in uniform and working security at the store, recognized the threat and shot Hampton, according to the patrol, which is investigating the shooting.
The officer was not injured and has been placed on routine administrative leave, said Capt. Dyon Harper, a Raytown police spokesman. No other injuries were reported.
Randy Hargrove, a Walmart spokesman, said he did not know how many customers or employees were in the store during the shooting, which unfolded about 20 minutes before closing. Counseling resources have been made available to employees, he said.
The killing marked the first homicide this year in Raytown and at least the 68th across the Kansas City metropolitan region, according to data kept by The Star, which includes fatal police shootings. By that time last year, there had been 62 homicides in the metro.
The shooting Saturday night was also not the first time an off-duty law enforcement officer killed a person at the Raytown store.
At the same Walmart, a Jackson County sheriff’s deputy on May 28, 2017, was working off-duty security when a man named Donald Sneed III was suspected of shoplifting.
Sneed allegedly became violent when employees tried to stop him.
The deputy, Lauren Michael, shot and killed Sneed during an altercation captured on surveillance video. At the time, she said Sneed took her stun gun away from her and shocked her with it, which was why she shot him.
The sheriff’s office also gave that version of events. Then-sheriff Mike Sharp awarded Michael a medal of valor for her actions.
Jackson County sheriff’s deputies were not equipped with body cameras. A video showing the shooting did not become public until years later.
Later that year, then-Raytown Alderman Eric Teeman suggested labeling the local Walmart a “public nuisance” because of the high number of police calls it draws. Police described calls to the store as draining their resources.
In Raytown, a city of about 10 square miles, officers made more than 500 arrests in 2016 at the Walmart. The store was the scene of about 30 percent of Raytown’s reported serious crimes, The Star reported in 2017.
About two years after that shooting, Deputy Michael, then 29, shot another person and again claimed the suspect grabbed her stun gun.
About 11:15 p.m. Aug. 8, 2019, Michael was one of several deputies conducting traffic enforcement patrols at 40th and Oak streets in the Westport area when the deputies noticed two people allegedly riding a scooter on the wrong side of the street.
Michael caught up with one of the scooter riders, Brittany Simeck, and a struggle ensued. Michael pulled out her service handgun and shot Simeck in the back and buttocks.
Michael said, as she had after the Raytown Walmart shooting, that the suspect had managed to grab the deputy’s stun gun and use it on her.
Simeck survived, and investigators found problems with Michael’s story.
Michael was not telling the truth, Jackson County prosecutors said in charging documents. She was charged with first-degree assault and armed criminal action.
Soon after, Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker announced her office would look again at the 2017 Donald Sneed killing.
An attorney for the Sneed family provided The Star with the surveillance video showing the shooting.
