Fight at Last Call leads to homicide

After being kicked out of club, participants wage gun battle on I-435

Kansas City, Mo. ? A fight that started in a Lawrence club early Sunday led to a deadly shooting in Kansas City, police there said.

One of the shooting victims, Dominic Bradley, 18, died at a Kansas City area hospital, police said. A second man was critically wounded and two others were treated and released from hospitals.

The victims told police they had been thrown out of Last Call, 729 N.H., and met up again on Interstate 435 near Holmes Road in Kansas City, Mo.

The shooting on the interstate involved 12 men and several vehicles, police said. The vehicles were stopped on the eastbound lanes of the interstate about 2:15 a.m. Sunday. When officers arrived to investigate, several men ran away or tried to drive away, but most were caught, Police Capt. Rich Lockhart said.

Sunday night at Last Call, a patron called the Journal-World and said Kansas City officers were at the club asking questions. Kansas City police would not answer questions about the incident Sunday night, and no one in the department’s media relations office was available Monday to comment because of the Veterans Day holiday.

According to the Kansas City Star’s Web site, however, authorities have charged four men in the shootings. Stephan R. Sawyer, 17, DeAngelo T. Blair, 18, Deshay M. Trotter, 19, and Dion E. Young, 21, each face 20 felony charges that include second-degree murder, seven counts of assault and 10 counts of armed criminal action. Sawyer is from Blue Springs, Mo., and the others are from Kansas City, Mo.

The city of Lawrence is trying to get the state not to renew Last Call’s liquor license when it comes up for renewal this month. A hearing before the Kansas Alcohol Beverage Control office is scheduled for Nov. 19-20.

The city objects to the license renewal on the grounds the establishment is creating serious safety concerns. In May 2006, seven shots were fired inside the downtown club. No one was injured.

Lawrence police have reported several weapons violations in the downtown area from June 2005 to June 2007 and many of those have occurred in parking lots near Last Call.