Harry Stone was on one of his usual jogs in a Kansas City suburb shortly before 7:30 a.m. Sunday when an approaching car slowed down and a passenger shot him.
The vehicle kept going without stopping, and Stone, 60, later died at a hospital.
Nearly a week later, police in Raytown, Missouri, say they have no suspects, and no one has any idea why he was targeted.
He wasn’t robbed. He didn’t have any known enemies. And a gang-initiation hit appears implausible, Raytown police Capt. Ted Bowman said.
“Even grasping at straws and imagining motives, we have been able to find nothing in the man’s background or time or place or associations or his relationships or his history,” Bowman said Thursday.
“Literally, we can find no motive,” he said.
Stone was a homeowners’ association leader and the husband of a pastoral assistant – she was supposed to preach Sunday morning at Raytown’s St. Luke United Methodist Church, CNN affiliate WDAF reported.
He was shot near an intersection by a gas station. Surveillance video from the station shows the shooting, though police have released only footage of a few seconds before the shot, Bowman said.
The video shows a dark-color, four-door car. Police say they don’t know the model or the license plate number. Bowman said a witness was able to describe only the passenger, and the description was light on details: a young African American male with a short Afro-type hairstyle.
A Kansas City police spokesman, representing a multiagency detective squad that looked into the shooting, initially told local media that the killing could have been part of a gang initiation, as CNN affiliate KCTV reported.
But Bowman said Thursday that detectives have determined this probably wasn’t the case.
“We have not found any of the street gangs, that we’re aware of, to make that an open part of the initiation process,” he said.
People who knew Stone told KCTV that he enjoyed serving others, doing things such as helping to build a park next to his church. His daughter, Susan Li, told reporters Monday that he prided himself in keeping physically fit and hoped to get back into running marathons.
Li asked for people with information about the shooting to come forward.
“He was in constant service … to the community, and the community now has the opportunity to be in the service of justice,” she said.
My sympathy to his family and friends.
This seems sooooo pointless!
probally an on-going rift between joggers/pedestrians vs erratic crazed drivers...scoreboard peds 0 driv 1
town civic leaders should invest in surveillance cams...
i agree, maybe even more sinister like he leads some kind of double life, maybe he's some kinda sicko and somebody knows him, or maybe he borrowed money from the mob. Wonder they didn't break his legs too.
An African American male,with short afro hair? Nice job cnn.Did he play basketball?
a duck is a duck. Surprised they even put the script of the perp anyway. When it come to blacks committing crime CNN usually leaves the "black" part out
Nothing to do with CNN, it's what the witness reported
i bet the wife had him killed.seen this same scenario to many times or maybe i just watch to many crime shows lol.
Perhaps the youths were 'standing their ground'. ?? After all if a white guy can shoot a black kid over skittles and tea it just seems right that black youths should shoot an old white man for running –
"Perhaps the youths were 'standing their ground'. ?? After all if a white guy can shoot a black kid over skittles and tea it just seems right that black youths should shoot an old white man for running -"
A 6' 3" thug who had a history of violence and drug abuse smashing your skull into the sidewalk is not just "Skittles and tea".
I hope the catch the thugs who did this. Condolences to the family.
Hate crime on one of my white brothers! This better be on every news channel for weeks! But seriously my heart goes out to his family and I hope these cowards are caught and beat senseless before they make it to the jail....
The murder rate in Missouri has been steadily increasing since we passed the permissive conceal and carry law.
Wow, what a surprise.
sounds like a scene out of the Sopranos.
Sounds like the two who went around an Arizona city – think it was – and shot for sport. Wouldn't be surprised if there's another one, soon.
We need a "Jog Your Ground" law NAOW!!!!
Hmm a young Black kills a stranger, White, on the street and no one thinks race was the motive.? If it had been a White shooting a Black, cries of hate crime would be overflowing the forum. Just like in the Zimmerman case. Some Blacks are just as racist as some Whites and they commit hate crimes too.
Bummer...a duck is a duck? Why are so many people seemingly devoid of even the most basic understanding of statistics. Here is the only statistic you really need to know...in terms of homicide, 86% of white murder victims are killed by white perpetrators and 94% of black murder victims are killed by black perpetrators. In other words, murder is almost always intraracial. This is a statistical anomaly. Had the race of the perpetrator not been provided, one could statistically infer with a high degree of likelihood that the killer were white. So, your "duck is a duck" assertion is based on absurd and misinformed subjective nonsense. Read and learn before typing nonsensical drivel that isn't supported by any statistic. Then again, a duck is a duck, so I'm not surprised by the post.
Steve,
blacks are 12% of the US population, whites are 72% and blacks commit most of the homicides. Though intraracial homicide is the norm, blacks commit a wildly disproportionate number of interracial murders. This is according to Federal Government statistics which are deliberately distorted to lessen the disparity, e.g. a black killing an Hispanic is categorized as "black-on-Hispanic", but an Hispanic killing a black is categorized as "white-on-black".
Sadly, 50 years of liberals indoctrinating blacks to think that racialist payback is owed to them coupled with the Obama Presidency has resulted in a a political climate in which many blacks feel emboldened to commit crimes.
Arm yourselves (legally), people. When Obama loses in November, lowlife blacks are going to use Obama's election loss as an excuse to engage in violent mayhem. There will be riots and there will be roving groups of blacks looking to start fights or attack whites without provocation.
I watched the video twice and paused it. I am willing to bet that is a black 2003 Toyota Camry.
The police cannot identify the make of the vehicle? I would find that astonishing if I actually believed it.
The cameras above the stop lights are recording all the time. They capture the driver and the plates, but the police won't use them for this crime.