Updated, Wednesday, 1:45 p.m.
The victim of a Wednesday morning drive-by shooting in Brookside was Thomas Pickert, a personal injury lawyer for the law firm Fowler Pickert Eisenmenger.
Police have not yet confirmed the victim's identity.
Kansas City Police Sgt. Kari D. Thompson says the man was on the front porch of his Brookside home when he was killed Wednesday morning. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Pickert devoted “100 percent of his practice to representing injury victims and their families,” according to his bio. He specialized in medical malpractice and nursing home abuse litigation.
Pickert recently represented a homeless man, Jeffery Harris, whose leg had to be amputated after he was shot by David Jungerman, the owner of the BabeeTenda Corp. Jungerman said he was just defending his property when he shot Harris and another man. Pickert argued that Harris was outside the building at the time of the shooting. A Jackson County jury this summer awarded Harris $5.75 million in damages.
Jungerman represented himself at the trial.
Pickert was married with two sons. His wife, a physician, called police after hearing something outside and finding her husband lying on the ground.
Before entering private practice, Pickert clerked on the Kansas Court of Appeals. According to the bio on his website, he was a competitive endurance athlete who ran marathons and recently qualified for the Ironman triathlon.
A neighbor who lived on Pickert's street said she noticed a white van crawling up and down the street Tuesday night.
"It didn't sit right, and it would go past my house and I turned around on Pennsylvania (Street) and come back down to Wornall (Avenue)," she said. "They did that a couple of times and then they turned into the Southwest High School parking lot where I was in the dark and they were just sitting there probably for 20 minutes. And I kept watching it. And then they sped off."
The neighbor said she now regrets not calling authorities last night. After hearing of the shooting this morning, she says she called the Tips Hotline and passed on the information about the van.
Original post continues below:
A man was shot to death while sitting on his front porch in Brookside Wednesday morning.
The Kansas City Police Department responded to the 200 block of West 66th Terrace just after 8 a.m. The victim’s wife told police she heard something outside and discovered her spouse lying on the ground. She heard a car speed away.
The victim is a white man in his late 30s.
Law enforcement officials are looking for a white 1997 Chevrolet van with Missouri license 6FA 453.
The shooting is one of three reported in Kansas City in the last 24 hours. Police do not believe this to be a random shooting.
Police confirmed Wednesday morning that the shooting brings the number of homicides in Kansas City, Missouri, this year to 119.
This story is developing. Check back later for updates.
