Shoppers step over stabbing victim

? As stabbing victim LaShanda Calloway lay dying on the floor of a Wichita convenience store, five shoppers, including one who stopped to take a picture of her with a cell phone, stepped over the woman, police said.

The June 23 incident, captured on a store surveillance video, had received scant news coverage until a columnist for The Wichita Eagle first disclosed Tuesday the existence of the video and its contents.

Police have repeatedly refused to release the video, saying it is part of their investigation.

“It was tragic to watch,” police spokesman Gordon Bassham said Tuesday. “The fact that people were more interested in taking a picture with a cell phone and shopping for snacks rather than helping this innocent young woman is, frankly, revolting.”

The woman was stabbed during an altercation at the store, but it was not part of a robbery, Bassham said. It took about two minutes for someone to call 911 to report the crime, he said.

Calloway, 27, later died at a hospital from her injuries.

Two suspects have been arrested. Cherish M. McCullough, 19, was charged with first-degree murder. Another suspect, who turned himself in a few days later, had not yet been charged as of Tuesday, according to the Sedgwick County prosecutor’s office.

“The lack of concern for humanity over this young woman’s life is deeply troubling,” Bassham said.

Bassham said the district attorney’s office would have to decide whether any of the shoppers could be charged.