Police: Shots fired at process server over eviction notice, landlord and tenant to appear in court
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - One person was charged and another was issued a summons in municipal court after a shots fired incident on Thursday afternoon.
The Kansas City Police Department stated officers were called to the 400 block of Booth Avenue due to a shots fired call. There, they learned people were at the residence “in regard to towing a vehicle from the location.” Butch Nelson, the landlord, explained to KCTV he did not recognize the van in the driveway, and they knocked on the door to ask but no one answered.
“She ran out and tried to fire the gun, but I guess it jammed so she pulled the lever back and fired it directly at us,” Nelson claimed. “We were maybe three feet apart and that bullet came right between us at chest level. It went right between us. Another foot and a half it would have been a different story.”
Officers stated that a property owner and a county process server were serving a first notice of eviction to a renter. The property owner began removing the van from the residence when the renter, who identified herself as Jessica James, fired shots from inside the home.
James claimed Nelson had harassed her family in the past and this was in self-defense when she thought someone was stealing her van. But, denied firing in the direction of where Nelson and the Civil Process Server were standing.
“I did not run outside I stepped outside and said you need to drop my car now,” James said. “And then the process server threw the paperwork over the fence. There was a shot fired but at a tree.”
James was issued a summons for a municipal discharge of a firearm, while the landlord was issued a summons for a municipal charge of theft.
The Jackson County 16th Judicial Circuit Court stated the process server was not one of the court’s process servers but rather a private process server.
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