By CHRISTINE VENDEL
The Kansas City Star
Kansas City police officers endured a rough night that ended early Monday with four officers injured in three unrelated confrontations.
A machete-wielding man allegedly punched and threatened one officer at 10 p.m. Sunday. The police officer fatally shot the man.
Twenty-five minutes later, four persons attacked four police officers trying to break up a disturbance at a house, leaving one officer with a broken jaw and two staples in the back of his head. A second officer suffered a broken nose.
A few hours later, an apparent drunken driver crossed the center line of a downtown street and struck a patrol car head-on. The officer suffered minor injuries. The other driver was critically injured.
The first assault began when an officer driving eastbound on Linwood Boulevard at Benton Boulevard heard an object hit his patrol car. Police gave this account:
The officer turned his car around and approached two men walking down a sidewalk. The officer told the men to stop and put their hands in the air. One man complied, but the other continued to approach the officer.
The officer backed up and repeatedly told the man to halt. But the man kept coming and punched the officer in the face. The man then pulled a machete from his coat and raised it above his head. That is when the officer shot Lamonte M. Livingston, 20, and killed him.
The officer suffered a cut to his face from being punched. He was treated and released from a hospital.
Police arrested the second man, whom they later determined did not know Livingston. The man told police he saw Livingston throw an object at the police car and then pull a machete on the officer.
The 25-year-old officer, who has worked for the department for about a year, was placed on routine administrative leave while detectives investigate the shooting.
Police said Livingstons relatives were upset and surprised by the shooting. Livingston lived alternately in Kansas City at his fathers house and at his mothers house.
Livingston did not have a criminal record, although his mother filed for an order of protection from him in December 2004.
Shortly after the shooting, police were called to an unrelated disturbance in the 3700 block of Chestnut Avenue.
Someone inside the home called when a small party got out of control. Police gave this account:
Two officers arrived, and one of them tried to take a woman outside to get her statement. As he escorted her outside, several women attacked the officer. The officers partner went to help, and the women began hitting the partner. Meanwhile, a man struck the first officer, breaking his nose.
During the melee, the officers and partygoers broke through a porch railing and landed on the lawn. The officers called for backup. When two more officers arrived, a man struck one of them, causing him to fall down and strike his head. The impact knocked him unconscious. He also suffered a broken jaw.
The officers eventually arrested four persons, including a 15-year-old girl.
Jackson County prosecutors Monday night charged Konnell L. Jackson, 24, of Kansas City, with two felony counts of assault of a law enforcement officer. Police planned to cite two women, ages 27 and 19, with city ordinance violations. No information was available about the 15-year-old girl.
The injured officers were treated and released from a hospital.
In the third act of the night in which an officer was injured, an officer driving southbound on Grand Boulevard was struck head-on by a driver who crossed the center line near 12th Street about 3:12 a.m. Monday. Police were investigating whether alcohol was a factor .
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