KANSAS CITY, Mo. — New video filed along with discovery in a recent grand jury indictment shows more of what led up to a deadly gas station shooting in Kansas City in July.
A grand jury recently indicted Emmanuel Hernandez in one of the two shooting deaths on July 20 at the Conoco at Truman Street and Brooklyn Avenue. It returned the same charges of voluntary manslaughter and armed criminal action.
But the family of brothers Taylor and Byron Garrett, who were shot and killed, question why the charges aren’t for murder.
affiliate WDAF showed that video on Wednesday to an attorney not involved in the case for his legal analysis on Missouri’s Stand Your Ground Law and its potential application.
The family of the Garrett brothers says the shooting was the result of road rage.
Probable cause statements make no mention of it, but video obtained by WDAF filed in the case seems to show Emanuel Hernandez’s silver Cadillac Escalade and the Garretts’ black Ford Escape near on the roads for at least three minutes before the Escape made a turn after the Escalade at 12th Street and Brooklyn.
The Garrett brothers arrived at the gas station first, and once Hernandez started toward the convenience store, surveillance video shows words briefly exchanged and the taller brother striking Hernandez, and both men chasing him back toward his car.
“Wow, wow, bang bang twice,” Attorney Dan Ross said, watching the altercation outside the convenience store.
“That shows a prior incident. Even though it’s a history that’s only 30 seconds old,” Ross said of the importance of the newly released video.
And under Missouri law, Ross says Emanuel Hernandez didn’t have a duty to retreat after the brothers left him at his SUV with his driver’s side door open.
Once inside, after appearing to argue, Taylor Garrett strikes Hernandez again, and Hernandez immediately pulls a gun from his waistband and starts firing, chasing after both men.
Jackson County Prosecutor Melesa Johnson said evidence showed that Taylor Garrett was the initial aggressor in the confrontation and Hernandez acted in self-defense in that shooting death.
However, she did file voluntary manslaughter charges in Byron Garrett’s death, pointing out Hernandez shot him as he tried to retreat, then pistol-whipped him as he stood over both men’s bodies on the gas station floor.
“There is no clear answer to this, that’s why you really enlist the jury to tell us whether it was lawful action. The judge can’t tell anybody, the prosecutor has made the charge, the grand jury has brought in the true bill. But eventually, if it goes to trial, the jury will tell us, especially given the self-defense law and instruction, they’ll tell us whether this was a lawful act by the defendant,” Ross said.
Hernandez posted $5,000 or ten percent of a $50,000 bond. He’s due in court on August 26.
