(KANSAS CITY, Kan.) — A 26-year-old Kansas police officer was killed when police say a suspect intentionally plowed into him while fleeing authorities during a pursuit.
Kansas City, Kansas, Police Officer Hunter Simoncic was deploying stop sticks in response to the pursuit early Tuesday when the suspect drove toward him and struck him, then continued to flee the area, police said.
Simoncic was transported to an area hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said.
The suspect — Dennis Mitchell III, 31, of Kansas City — was taken into custody after crashing the vehicle and was arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder, according to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.
“This was an intentional act, a willful act, to evade custody by striking the officer,” Kansas City Police Chief Karl Oakman said during a press briefing Tuesday, calling the death of the officer “devastating.”
“It’s just difficult. It makes no sense,” he said. “I have no words for it.”
The incident unfolded shortly around 12:30 a.m., when officers with the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department were dispatched to a call of shots fired, according to the KBI. Officers shortly found Mitchell unconscious in the driver’s seat of a truck, the KBI said.
“As officers approached the driver, he woke up and fled the scene,” the KBI said in a release.
Mitchell abandoned the vehicle for another truck that was “stashed in the woods” and continued fleeing from officers, Oakman said.
During the pursuit, Simoncic exited his vehicle to stage stop sticks, in an attempt to safely puncture and deflate the tires on the fleeing vehicle, police said.
“The suspect continued through the stop sticks and veered his vehicle directly at Officer Simoncic, striking him at the scene,” Oakman said.
Shortly before 1 a.m., Mitchell crashed the truck, KBI said. He was taken into custody and treated at an area hospital before being booked into the Wyandotte County Jail, according to the KBI.
He also faces charges of vehicular homicide, fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer, theft, criminal possession of a firearm, and aggravated failure to appear, the KBI said. Formal charges are pending, police said. It is unclear if he has an attorney at this time.
Police later learned that both trucks driven by the suspect had been reported stolen, according to the KBI.
Oakman said the suspect has several outstanding warrants, but did not go into detail amid the investigation, which is being conducted by the KBI.
Simoncic was following protocol in deploying the stage sticks, the police chief said.
“This was a situation that we do across the metro thousands of times a year, deploying stop sticks, and this individual felt the need to run Hunter down and kill him,” Oakman said. “That is not a vehicle accident. This was an intentional act of homicide on a police officer.”
Simoncic, who was from Galesburg, Kansas, graduated from the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department Police Academy in 2023. He is survived by his mother, father and brother, Oakman said.
Kansas City, Kansas, Mayor Tyrone Garner condemned the “shameful acts of violence” in the community.
“I went to the hospital — what words do you say to a family, a brother, a mother and a father, grieving, knowing that that life has been snuffed out and it didn’t have to be?” Garner said during the press briefing.
Simoncic volunteered to read and mentor children in local schools, the mayor said, adding, “That says a lot about the type of individual he was.”
“My heart hurts for this police department, for our chief, for his command staff, for all the men and women of the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department, for all our public safety professionals, for our community,” Garner said. “I just don’t have a lot of words to say to comfort this community. And sometimes, saying, ‘Thoughts and prayers,’ just isn’t enough. It’s just going to take a lot more than that.”
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