ABC News was among the national and international networks that showed an extraordinary dash cam video of a rolling drive-by shooting and gun battle at 23rd and Topping in Kansas City, Missouri.
Here is how the gunfight unfolds: The car with the dash cam stops for a red light behind a sedan. The two cars are heading east on East 23rd Street. Both are in the left lane.
Meanwhile, an SUV pulls up on the right side of the sedan and a little beyond it. Two weapons come out the window–the more obvious one looks like an “AK pistol”, sometimes called a “Krinkov”–and the shooters start firing at a vehicle parked on Topping Avenue headed north roughly fifty years away.
Two gunmen standing behind that vehicle fire back. One bullet hits the sedan, but fortunately the young woman and two small children who occupy it are not injured. The woman peels out and heads in a major hurry southeast on Blue Valley Park Road.
Apparently, a young couple occupied the car with the dash cam. According to ABC News, drive-by shootings in 2016 were up 50 percent over 2015. This week Kansas City, Missouri, recorded its 21st homicide, a 16 percent increase over last year at this time, and last year saw a record surge.
No one seems to have a very good explanation as to why this is happening.