Ceremony held for Drexel Mack at Jackson County Courthouse
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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Co-workers, friends and members of the Jackson County community gathered Monday morning to honor the life and service of Drexel Mack, the civil process server who was shot and killed in the line of duty on February 29.
Mack, 41, was shot while attempting to carry out an eviction in Independence where responding officers were also shot. Independence Officer Cody Allen also died in the shooting and was laid to rest last week.
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Mack was remembered for his smile, his laugh and his singing.
Mack served Jackson County for more than 12 years, and visitors to the courthouse could see those deep connections he made with co-workers, alongside Mack’s family, all experiencing the shocking loss.
He had a fiancee. Now his life continues in tribute.
Before becoming a civil process server, Drexel Mack, “Mack” to most people, worked with at-risk children in family court.
Before that he served in the Navy and even sang in their service choir.
“Those who knew Mack, he had a big presence. Sometimes a very big voice. But it was wrapped in big love,” Darnell Hill, Drexel Mack’s best friend and pastor at St. Louis/The Cure Church, said.
“The one thing that everybody came up with — his laugh and that contagious smile that he had,” Jeremy McCoy said.
McCoy was Mack’s partner as a civil process server. He was there on Feb. 29 when, at an Independence home, prosecutors say 69-year-old Larry Acree fired shots that killed Mack as well as Allen.
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Those risks and burdens of service work, emphasized at the memorial.
“Let us remember his smile and his commitment to his craft of being a true professional. The way that he could walk into a room and light it up,” Hill said.
“The morning of February 29, we were sitting in the office talking and joking around a little bit before we hit the field like we normally do. I was assigned to work with Mack that afternoon,” McCoy said.
“The only thing that I can share with the family right now and the community as we’re all trying to come together with what happened, the moments before everything happened, he was laughing. He called me brother. He gave me a hug before we took that long walk together,” McCoy said.
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Mack’s remains are back in Florida where his family will hold his funeral, and where his mother lives. She has health concerns and could not travel, so they honored her at the memorial with an empty chair.
Acree faces two counts of first-degree murder, three counts of armed criminal action and first-degree assault in the killings of Mack and Allen and wounding of other officers. He’s held on a $2 million cash bond and is due in court to review that bond on Friday at 10 a.m.
