KANSAS CITY, Mo. (CNS) –
On Wednesday, Jackson County Prosecutor Melesa Johnson announced charges in the city’s first homicide of 2025.
41-year-old Jerome L. Davis is charged with the shooting death of 40-year-old Calvin L. Bushnell in the early morning hours of Jan. 1, 2025.
Around 2:40 a.m., the Kansas City Police Department was dispatched to the area of Elmwood Avenue and 31st Street on reports of a shooting. When officers arrived, they found Bushnell dead with gunshot wounds and took another victim to the hospital with a non-life-threatening gunshot wound to his arm.
Witnesses of the shooting said they were celebrating New Year’s when they saw Davis load a 9mm handgun and shoot the victims while they were sitting on a couch in the residence. He then reportedly left in the same car that Bushnell had arrived in.
The witnesses said they knew Davis had just been released from prison and was supposedly on federal house arrest. Court documents stated he was previously incarcerated in the United States Federal Penitentiary in Leavenworth for bank robbery.
I-20 Closed After Fatal Drunk Driving Crash: Four Killed, Three Injured
KCPD detectives reached out to Davis’s probation officer, who advised them that he was wearing an ankle monitor that confirmed he was at the residence at Elmwood Avenue and 31st Street when the shooting happened.
A witness told police that around midnight, everyone present at the party “started shooting celebratory gunshots from the front porch. They continued to do this for the next few hours,” documents state, then returned inside shortly before the fatal shooting took place.
Investigators reported finding 165 spent shell casings from various calibers outside the residence and seven more of a 9mm caliber inside. Investigators also found two large bags of what appeared to be marijuana, two bags of an unidentified white substance and a 9mm pistol.
Jackson County Prosecutor Melesa Johnson said this case hits close to home.
“It’s my neighborhood. That’s my district, and so it is very personal to me,” Johnson said.
Johnson and other prosecutors in the office strengthened their case against Davis after witnesses positively identified him from a lineup and detectives were able to match his identity to old Facebook accounts using biometric data.
“It is a unified effort. Not one strategy, not one person, not one office, is going to be able to really nip this in the bud. It’s going to take all of us, community included,” Johnson said.
After Davis was arrested, he was returned to the Leavenworth penitentiary for violating his house arrest terms.
When questioned, court documents state that Davis denied any knowledge of celebratory gunfire or a homicide. He said when other people brought out guns, he got a ride home from someone else around 2 a.m. and that he “never felt threatened or had any arguments with anyone at the residence.”
Given the evidence investigators collected, Davis has been charged with ten felonies:
- Second-degree murder (one count)
- Armed criminal action (four counts)
- First-degree assault or attempt – serious physical injury (one count)
- Unlawful use of a weapon – shooting at a person, motor vehicle or building (two counts)
- First-degree tampering with a motor vehicle (one count)
- Unlawful possession of a firearm – Dangerous felon/prior conviction (one count)
While the arrest won’t comfort Bushnell’s family, Johnson said she is glad they were able to bring charges quickly.
“It’s one thing to be able to deliver justice to a family. It’s another thing to be able to do it swiftly. And so with our first homicide of 2025 I am very pleased that we were able to file charges in such a short amount of time. Studies show that swift in certain consequences is actually how you deter crime, not necessarily lengthy prison sentences,” Johnson said.
Davis is being held on no bond. His next court appearance is currently unknown.