Services honor K.C. shooting victims

? The father of one of two college students slain outside a party at a Knights of Columbus hall implored his son’s friends to come forward with any information they had on the shootings.

Nathan Buie Jr., 20, and DeMarco Harvey, 19, died July 23 in a shooting spree that injured nine other people. Police continue to investigate the shootings, and no one has been charged in the men’s deaths.

Buie’s funeral Saturday drew a standing-room-only crowd of more than 1,000 people to Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church.

“I want to say to all of Nathan’s friends: I want you to find out who did it,” the Rev. Nathan Buie said. “Some of you listening to me right now know who did it.”

His remarks prompted a standing ovation.

Harvey’s funeral Saturday at the Sheffield Family Life Center in east Kansas City also drew a large crowd.

In the church’s auditorium, a video played with remarks from the University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff student’s family and friends.

The Rev. George Westlake said Harvey, a regular churchgoer, had plans for a bright future.

“He always had an agenda, and he had a mouth on him, so he’d tell you about it,” Westlake said.

Paul Hoppman, who worked with Harvey at a grocery store, said Harvey “brightened the lives of all his co-workers.”

“DeMarco didn’t have to tell anyone he was a kind man,” Hoppman said. “You just knew it. He didn’t have to tell anyone he was a generous man. You just knew it.”

At Buie’s ceremony, former Kansas City Councilman John Sharp said Buie – a student at the University of Missouri-Kansas City – had done nothing wrong that night.

“He didn’t take the wrong fork,” said Sharp, who knew Buie well. “He took the right one. He was just out enjoying himself with other college students.”