Alleged MS-13 gang members face murder charges in Kansas City teen’s fatal shooting
Two alleged members of the transnational crime organization MS-13 are accused of killing a Kansas City teenager because they believed he belonged to a rival gang, according to court records.
Kennedy Lopez-Maderos and Alexis Menjivar, both 18, were each charged Saturday in Jackson County Circuit Court with first-degree murder and armed criminal action in the shooting death of 17-year-old Johan Sarmiento-Peralta. Sarmiento-Peralta was fatally shot Thursday in the city’s Lykins neighborhood and died two days later in the hospital.
According to court records, Sarmiento-Peralta was with his girlfriend and a family member on the day of the shooting to watch a soccer match near East 10th Street and Van Brunt Boulevard. After they parked, they were approached by a group of four men who were in a black pickup truck.
One witness recognized three men from growing up in the same neighborhood. She told police the group took issue with a shirt Sarmiento-Peralta was wearing, which displayed the number “8,” and asked if he was part of the rival 18th Street gang.
Sarmiento-Peralta denied being part of any gang when confronted by the men, court papers say. He was then ordered to remove his shirt but refused.
Afterward, the witnesses told police, the group returned to the black truck and were seen making phone calls before leaving. Ten minutes later, roughly a dozen men returned in three separate vehicles, including Menjivar and Lopez-Maderos, witnesses told police.
Menjivar and Lopez-Maderos allegedly walked back over and confronted Sarmiento-Peralta again as he was sitting in the driver’s seat of the vehicle he arrived in. He again refused to remove his shirt, leading to a scuffle where Lopez-Maderos allegedly punched Sarmiento-Peralta.
Witnesses told police Menjivar then handed a black handgun to Lopez-Maderos, who allegedly shot Sarmiento-Peralta once in the head. All of the men fled the area afterward, court papers say.
Sarmiento-Peralta was pronounced dead at the hospital on Saturday. Within an hour, one of the witnesses called KCPD’s homicide unit to report that the suspected shooters had fled to Kansas City, Kansas after the shooting.
The witness also reported that they were warned MS-13 members were “planning to eliminate the Witnesses by both shooting into their residence while they are inside or following them and shooting them,” according to court papers.
Detectives investigating the shooting found surveillance tapes that appeared to corroborate the witness accounts. One was from a city camera that showed a black pickup matching the suspect vehicle near a known MS-13 gang house in the 1500 block of Cypress Avenue, according to court papers.
Authorities also determined Lopez-Maderos and Menjivar were affiliated with MS-13 based on reports from the Kansas City Gang Intelligence Unit, a cooperative that includes the Kansas City, Kansas police.
Warrants issued on Saturday for the arrests of Lopez-Maderos and Menjivar called for each man to be held on a $500,000 cash-only bond.
