Man sentenced to 18 years in prison for shooting a colleague at a gas station

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (KCTV) – On Sunday, the Jackson County District Attorney's Office announced that a Kansas City man was sentenced to 18 years in prison for shooting another person in August 2023.

On August 15, 2024, a Jackson County judge accepted a guilty plea from Matthew Whitmill of St. Joseph, Missouri, to charges of first-degree assault and armed criminal action.

According to court records, Whitmill's conviction stems from a shooting and subsequent chase with police that occurred on August 29, 2023.

Around 11 p.m. that evening, a Kansas City Police officer was on duty at a gas station in the 3800 block of Truman Road when he heard a gunshot. When the officer looked over, he said, he saw Whitmill point a gun at a victim and saw him fire two more shots.

Court documents reported that the officer got out of his patrol car and tried to intervene, but Whitmill got back in his car and drove away. The officer got back in his patrol car to follow Whitmill and noticed that he saw the victim bleeding as he drove by.

The chase lasted several blocks, court documents say. Whitmill ran stop signs and traffic lights until stop bars successfully deflated his tires. When his car stopped, he got out and lay down on the ground without resistance.

The victim was taken to a nearby hospital with gunshot wounds to both legs. He survived his injuries.

Another witness at the scene of the shooting told police she heard the victim “pleading with Whitmill, saying, 'You don't have to do this, brother,'” before he was shot.

When questioned by KCPD detectives on August 30, 2023, Whitmill said he and the victim had had several conflicts at their workplace in the months before the shooting. The arguments were resolved before they became violent, Whitmill told detectives, but on the day of the shooting, he admitted he went to the gas station “knowing that a confrontation with [the victim] could happen.”

Court records also revealed that Whitmill's driver's license had been suspended at the time of the shooting and chase after he refused a drug/alcohol test (chemical withdrawal) in 2008, which is a permanent stigma.

Whitmill was sentenced to 15 years in prison for assault and 3 years in prison for armed criminal action.

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