Man dies from gunshot wounds after crash in KC, police investigate tie to earlier shooting

Update: Police identified the victim as 20-year-old Michael B. Waylee.

Police are investigating a possible connection between a fatal shooting and a crash early Saturday morning after a man died with gunshot wounds near an apartment building.

Officers responded at 4 a.m. to East 12th Street and Benton Boulevard to a reported crash. They found an unoccupied vehicle with what appeared to be bullet holes and evidence of someone being injured in the vehicle.

Officers canvassing the area were led to an apartment building southeast of the intersection where they found a man unresponsive who appeared to have been shot, said Capt. Jake Becchina, a spokesman with KCPD, in an email. Paramedics pronounced the man, later identified as Waylee, dead at the scene.

The vehicle initially reported in the crash was speeding west on 12th Street just after 1 a.m., Becchina said. At the intersection of Benton Boulevard, it sideswiped a vehicle, lost control and crashed into a parked vehicle west of Benton.

After the crash, the victim left the vehicle and fled the scene, Becchina said, before officers later found him at the apartment building.

Detectives are investigating a potential connection between the man who died and a shooting that took place just east of where the car crashed, at 12th Street and Hardesty Avenue earlier that morning, just after 1 a.m., Becchina said. Another man was shot and transported to the hospital from the scene of the shooting with what police believe to be non-life threatening injuries.

Detectives and crime scene investigators were processing the scenes of the crash and shooting for evidence Saturday. Police have not yet released the name of the man who was killed.

The killing is Kansas City’s 111th homicide of 2024, according to data tracked by The Star, which includes fatal police shootings. At this time last year, the city had recorded 140 homicides.

If anyone heard or saw anything near the area of the crash or shooting between 1-4 a.m., police ask that they contact Homicide detectives directly at 816-234-5043 or the TIPS Hotline anonymously at 816-474-8477. There is a reward of up to $25,000 for information submitted anonymously to the TIPS hotline.