KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Two teens shot and killed late Thursday night have been identified by the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department.
The police department said Samuel Guess and Antonio Johnson, both 14 years old, were pronounced dead inside an apartment on the 2200 block of Birch Drive.
“I don’t wish this pain on nobody," Veronica Johnson, mother of victim Antonio Johnson, said. “He was a pretty cool kid. Kind of on the rough side though, but he didn’t deserve that, what happened to him, and whoever did it is a coward.”
Johnson said her family recently moved from Arkansas for a better life.
“I moved to get away from violence, but it looks like I didn’t," Johnson said.
A Kansas City, Kansas, Public School District spokesperson confirmed both Johnson and Guess were district students.
In a statement, spokesperson Sharita Hutton said support is being made available for students when they return to school.
"We will have our Crisis Incident Team at the schools on Tuesday to help with counseling for any students who may need assistance at this time," Hutton said.
Some say violence, as a societal issue, needs attention.
"We're losing our youth. At one point do we step in and say, let's do something," Chandra Green said.
Green is director of Alive & Thrive Wyandotte, an organization that helps to educate people and help members of the community heal from trauma.
"The trauma training that we do identifies what the issues are, but then also it's not just a conversation. It's what the action behind it?" Green questioned.
Green said parents like Johnson may never heal but can learn how to place it.
KCKPD has not identified a suspect in the double homicide, which remains under investigation.
Anyone with information connected to the case is asked to call the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-TIPS (8477) or go online at KCCrimestoppers.com. People can remain anonymous.
