In one of the wildest Northland shoot-outs since Bonnie and Clyde burst out of their Platte City motor court, two Northland high schoolers laid low one of their drug customers near Zona Rosa and were promptly charged with murder.
Reporting honors here go to the Platte County Citizen, whose account of the shooting Monday is much more specific than the Kansas City Star’s. According to court documents, 17-year-old, Dominic Pineda, who is scheduled to graduate from Park Hill High School, was selling drugs from his home in the 8600 block of North Rhode Avenue just west of Zona Rosa and north of Park Hill High.
Pineda distrusted a SnapChat query to buy two ounces of marijuana because the price offered was too high. So he had weapons at the ready for himself and two accomplices when the would-be purchasers arrived.
According to the Citizen, “Four men arrived to the residence in a red Chevrolet Monte Carlo, according to court documents, but only [Timothy] Durden and another unidentified black man entered the residence.”
As Pineda told the police, Durden pulled a gun on these young entrepreneurs and pointed it at them. Claiming he feared for his life, Pineda opened fire, killing Durden. Pineda friend Keith Spencer joined in the shooting. Spencer claimed he just shot into the wall. Spencer, being himself African American, will not likely be charged with a hate crime. Pineda’s other friend, unnamed in the report, was shot in the left knee.
The other three dudes who arrived with the unfortunate Durden fled in their red Monte Carlo. Aspiring teen drug dealers in the Northland are well advised to keep their distance from purchasers in red Monte Carlos.
Meanwhile, Pineda and Spencer sit and fester in the Jackson County Detention Center until someone ponies up the requisite $350,000 cash-only bonds. It is hard to say what will become of the two teens gone bad save that they will cost the taxpayers of Missouri a whole lot of money before their days are through.