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.
A lot of race hate, with out knowing facts. Why all the hate? Sorry it wasn't white on white.
Could have been. One witness, No gang profile .....Daytime shooting....sounds more like a hired killer who knew where this dude would be!
Isn't your statement "Sorry it wasn't white on white" also race baiting too? Isn't it like slapping a kid because the kid has hit someone?
Pretty sad when innocent people get gun down when they are just living life. feel for the family and hope they catch the loser who shot this person.
True that. I don't recall a bunch of black posters ranting like lunatics when that two white men randomly shot and killed several black people last month. Just silence from the white racists then. Maybe they were quietly cheering.
Probably a black dude.
it could go back to that homeowners association...........they sometimes have very strick rules that get people really stirred up even though they know about the rules when they buy the home!
I was thinking that too.
Our New America...troubled kids without an education killing people for the "fun of it". Plain stupidity. Now he's devastated an entire family...nothing to be proud of...he needs to be shipped to Texas when found. They know how to handle criminals.
Condolences to the family and friends.
Given that Texas has one of the higher crime rates, I'd say Texas knows more about creating criminals than deterring crime.
Left America 20-years ago... And proud of it! Too much racism, mostly black against white. Too many crooked politicians.
Where did you go?
Is there such thing as black against white racism??? Not according to Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. But I agree, black against white racism is just as strong or stronger than white against black racism. Just like at the statistics of whites being shot by blacks vs. the the other way around.
To Jance who at May 19, 2012 at 4:41 pm wrote:
"They have already established that it was NOT a gang initiation."
And exactly how did "they" "establish" that?
There are some sick, evil and wicked people in the world. They come in all shapes, sizes, colors and from various economic, social and religious, non-religious backgrounds. For whatever excuse this peson committed this it's evil and wicked. There is no excuse for killing someone going about their daily activities and minding their own business. Even in a confrontational situation my first instinct is to at least make an attempt to walk away from such a situation. Martial Arts teach this and I believe in it. Only when I realize there is NO EXIT, no way out would I stand and defend myself. To drive by and simply shoe someone is the stuff COWARDS are made of.
I was shot in a drive by while jogging maybe 18 years ago, just a few miles south of this particular shooting. Luckily, just my leg so I am fine now. I saw the car and the kids. We never caught them though. Then I was assaulted in another drive by a few years ago (stick out the window while biking)...we caught them (another driver called in their license) and I was never called for the court date so I don't know if they were punished. I am not surprised when the assault becomes deadly. The teens I work with repeat what their parents say....and often it is very hateful about people who exercise on streets or sidewalks (runners and bikers alike).
BTW both off my assaults were mid-day.For the first one, the shooting, I had just moved here so nobody even knew me in the town.
You didn't say if they were black or not,I guess you didn't have to.
Wonder if Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson are going to show up in Kansas City...
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It was obviously a stolen car. Best way to proceeds checking stolen cars and hoping for DNA. Eventually he's going to open his stupid mouth and brag to his stupid friends.
Enhance.
Once again, not a "hate crime"??!! Like the guy in Dallas who just walked up to a woman in Target, stabbed her in the back with a butcher knife he had removed from a package there and then walked away. No motive, just hate. Yep, he's black, she's white...probably "justice for Trayvon"...look for more of that...
How can they charge anyone with a hate crime when they don't have any suspects? Stop acting stupid. Last month, two white men randomly shot and killed several black pedestrians. The police didn't label it a hate crime until after they caught the criminals and conducted a proper investigation into motive. It's called being professional. Every inter-racial crime is not motivated by racial hatred. The police are just doing their jobs. They don't have the luxury of popping off on the 'net in a moment of racist irritation.
We're no better than the middle easterns...killing ourselves...
The word "implausible" when relating to a gang shooting is plain shortsightedness. It demonstrates how out of touch some police departments in urban areas really are.Gang initiations can happen anywhere at any time. The whole point in killing someone randomly is to chose a random place to commit the crime. Gangs have long been overlooked as terrorist groups. In fact that is what they base their reign and dominance on. The myth that it is purely an inner city problem with people of color,provides the gangs with easy areas to expand their territories of spreading their decay and ruin and misery.
I agree. I do think it was a random act by a gang. Very surprising that the police department has a hard time coming to that conclusion. Too bad we can't list gangs as a terrorist and wipe them out, would go a long ways to making America a better place.