Jackson County prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said at a news conference that 27-year-old Mohammed Whitaker, of Grandview, has been charged with 18 felony counts and was being held on $1 million cash bail for about a dozen highway shootings that wounded three people, according to CNN.
Baker said Whitaker, who had been under surveillance by police for about a week before his arrest, was charged with two counts of shooting into a motor vehicle and injuring a person, seven counts of shooting into a motor vehicle and nine counts of armed criminal action, CNN reported.
"This has impacted all of us, each side of State Line, each side of the river," Baker said, according to CNN. "It's been something that's been at the hearts and thoughts of all us since the day this case first broke."
Six of the shootings occurred near Grandview, the Kansas City suburb that's home to an area known as the Grandview Triangle, where three interstates and U.S. 50 intersect, CNN reported.
The other shootings were reported in the Missouri suburbs of Blue Springs and Lee's Summit and Leawood, Kan, according to CNN. Two of the wounded drivers were shot in the leg, and the third was shot in the arm. None of their wounds was considered life-threatening.
Baker said the public played a key role leading to Whitaker's arrest by providing more than 100 tips, including some vital information, CNN reported.
Some of the tips included descriptions of the suspect and his car, his Illinois license plate number, and the discovery of spent shell casings reported by someone looking for a lost cellphone, according to the probable cause statement, according to CNN.
"We would not be here but for the tips that came in, but for the individuals that were willing to tell us about car descriptions and other information that they had. ... Without those types of citizens in our community, I wouldn't be able to stand here today with 18 felony charges," Baker said of the tips, CNN reported.
Whitaker was taken into custody Thursday at a home near Interstate 49, one of the highways that intersects at the Grandview Triangle, according to CNN. Police also confiscated a dark green Dodge Neon there.
