30 October 2023
WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — There were three separate shootings in Wichita in about three hours early Sunday. When the gunfire ended, one person was dead, and five people were injured. Police are still looking for the shooters.
“Regrettably, it was an extremely violent weekend across the country and, unfortunately, here in Wichita as well,” Wichita Police Chief Joe Sullivan said.
All three shootings happened at or near entertainment venues.
The first shooting was at Onyx nightclub around 12:30 a.m. Sunday. The Wichita Police Department says a lone gunman killed one person and injured two people.
The second shooting happened just after 1:30 a.m. The WPD said officers were in Old Town to ensure safety and heard gunshots. They found a 22-year-old man with a non-life-threatening gunshot wound.
A couple hours later, just after 3:30 a.m., police were sent to investigate a shooting in the 1500 block of East Pawnee. As officers were responding, they learned that two men, ages 21 and 28, showed up at hospitals with non-life-threatening gunshot wounds.
The WPD said investigators got a search warrant for 1507 E. Pawnee and found evidence that the place is an illegal after-hours club. Police believe several people in the club recorded the shooting on their cellphones. They want those people to come forward to help with the investigation.
Sullivan said all the shootings have one common theme.
“The consistent thing we see is people that are choosing permanent solutions to what are very temporary problems,” he said. “We have what should be minor disturbances, arguments, turning into fatal and almost fatal incidents, utilizing a firearm rather than exercising self-control and good judgment.”
The police chief said the WPD will implement a new gun violence prevention strategy in 2024. He said it incorporates best practices from across the country.
“It’s something that we’re continuing to improve upon … always looking to evaluate best practices from around the country and, when we feel that it will benefit us, implementing them,” Sullivan said. “That’s exactly what our new crime control strategy will be. It will be a combination of those best practices, looking at other cities that have been successful in reducing violent crime and then implementing them here.”
He said all levels of the justice system need to send the message that gun violence will not be tolerated.
“People have a right to protect themselves, and law-abiding citizens have a right to possess firearms and for their self-protection,” Sullivan said. “But once you are, become a convicted felon, you’re not permitted to have a firearm, and when you violate that, there has to be swift and certain consequences.”
But he said some people are just not going to obey the law, and they represent a clear and present danger to other people.
Sullivan spoke specifically about the shooting at Onyx that started with a disturbance inside the club.
“You know you have a thousand people in that club, and you have one person that decides that they’re going to do something,” he said. “It’s not fair to say a thousand people can’t meet and enjoy Halloween because a couple people just refuse to obey the law, refuse to exercise self-control.”
After the disturbance inside Onyx, Sullivan said the suspect was put out of the club.
“He simply could have gone somewhere else, but he decided that he was going to get a gun and he was going to try to harm someone, and now we have one person dead, two people are injured,” he said. “Thank God they survived, but there’s no doubt about it: their lives have been altered. They’ll be recovering for quite some time, and it all is unacceptable and completely preventable.”
“It was his bad choice. It wasn’t the gun. It was the person that pulled the trigger,” Sullivan said.