By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
One person has been sentenced; two others await court dates as the investigation into the shooting death of two-year-old Raelynn Craig in St. Joseph last year nears its close.
Twenty-one-year-old Marcain Kimbrough-Ballard of St. Joseph has been sentenced to 26 years in prison for his part in the drive-by shooting last August that killed Raelynn.
St. Joseph Police Chief Chris Connally acknowledges it makes a difference when the death involves a child.
“These cases are always very difficult,” Connally says on the KFEQ Hotline. “These days almost all of our shootings we know, fairly quickly, we get information on who the suspect is, but getting enough information and people that will come forward to put the case together, to corroborate evidence sometimes can be a challenge.”
Two others have court dates next month.
Twenty-one-year-old Caimon Ramone Stillman of St. Joseph has pleaded guilty for his role in the shooting death. Twenty-year-old Te’Avion Hawkins of Platte City is scheduled to appear in court next month as well.
St. Joseph has experienced a couple of rolling shootings as shots fired from a moving vehicle struck and wounded a woman while another left a bullet hole in a vehicle.
Connally says those types of shootings do concern him.
“Unfortunately, we have ‘shots fired’ calls almost every day,” Connally says. “We’re always concerned at the risk that that creates, the recklessness involved. That’s one of the extreme challenges is you’ve got a lot of people with firearms out there that are not responsible firearms owners.”
Last week, shots fired from a moving vehicle wounded a 34-year-old St. Joseph woman. Police reported nine shots were fired with one hitting the woman in the hand. Early Wednesday morning, one of two shots fired from a moving car hit another vehicle. The driver of the vehicle was not hit.