Two suspects have been arrested in the death of a 6-year-old boy nearly two weeks after he was gunned down as he played in the yard of a Kansas home with his uncle and a 7-year-old cousin, police announced Thursday.
Police said 20-year-old Lakevis Sloan and a 17-year-old were taken into custody Tuesday evening as they exited a Greyhound bus in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. They are awaiting extradition, charged with second-degree murder in the May 3 shooting death of 6-year-old Sir’Antonio Brown. Charging documents show that Sloan also is charged with aggravated child endangerment.
“These arrests doesn’t take the pain away, but they bring a little comfort,” his godmother, Shyneisha Hill, said.
Police, meanwhile, used the arrest to ask for help locating a third, not-yet-identified suspect.
“Don’t wait any longer, because we will arrest anybody and everybody who is housing or covering for this child killer,” Det. Mark Bundy said.
Police said previously that the suspects came to the Kansas City neighborhood with the intention of targeting someone, although they provided no additional details. The Wyandotte County prosecutor’s office spokesman said he didn’t know if they have attorneys.
Hill believes they were after the child’s uncle, whom she described as “in a lot of mess.” He was sleeping in his truck, she said, parking it in front of another relative’s home at night.
“Nobody really knows what the beef is,” she said. “We just are really trying to figure out, like, how it was that serious? Whatever it was, was it that serious to disregard the lives of children?”
The gunfire erupted as her own son, Qwamayne Frazier, was in the backyard playing with Sir’Antonio, who was called Sir by his family, she said. The children’s homes are across the street from one another and they attended the same school. After they got off the bus, they would change clothes and rush outside to play.
They were “just doing what they do normally, just out there playing, riding the bike, jumping on the trampoline, running around in the yard,” Hill said.
Sir’Antonio’s mom was at work but Hill was home when a car came to a stop, she said.
“This wasn’t just a random drive by shooting,” she said. “The suspects actually got out on foot, out of their car, seeing our kids out there.”
She said the suspects fired down the street, hitting Sir’Antonio but no one else. The shooting left her son unable to sleep alone, clingy, unwilling to go outside, simply repeating: “I know what happened to Sir. I can tell what happened to Sir,” she said.
When the crime scene tape disappeared, she said, he asked her: “How are we going to be protected?” She vowed to safeguard him with her life, she said, but the promise felt hollow initially, with the suspects still on the lose.
“We don’t know if they’re going to come back,” she said at the time. “We just don’t know.”
She said the children were best friends, describing themselves as brothers. “That’s just how we raised them,” Hill said.
Hill recalled Sir’Antonio as “the best kid ever,” happy, outspoken and athletic. Every Sunday, he was in church, emptying his pockets at offering time.
“He was such a gentleman,” she said. “He always made himself present, and he was just always there for everybody.”