Breaking News: East Students Arrested in Murder Case

2:40 p.m. on April 29 | Updated — On Friday the East Coffee Shop raised $500 for Ryder Spillman’s family, according to paraprofessional Mike Meehan. Meehan pointed out that this total came from the shop’s business today from 7-11 a.m. SM North Student Services is currently accepting donations to buy gift cards for the family, according to their web page. Checks can be made out to SMN.

Spillman’s funeral will be on Sunday, May 1, at the Maple Hills Funeral Home at 1 p.m., the obituary said. A visitation will be held prior to service from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. According to posts in a memorial Facebook group, a cook out fundraiser will be held after the funeral at Waterworks Park to raise money for Spillman’s family.

In an exclusive interview with The Harbinger Online, Principal Karl Krawitz said the Reed family is “no longer in the building.” Dr. Krawitz said East administrators had spoken to the parents of students that had been at the shooting but had been released by police without charges. Those students will not be returning to East this year, he said. Many in New Mafia have dropped out of East this semester, leaving only one or two members, according to Dr. Krawitz. A few “non-players” are all that remain in the building, he said.

SM North Principal Richard Kramer and Dr. Krawitz have been in contact since the shooting and Dr. Krawitz said the shooting was not caused by a North-East rivalry. Dr. Krawtiz said he heard the incident could have been over $30.

“Whatever it was, it was stupid,” Dr. Krawtiz said.

Ryder Spillman (pictured above left), a sophomore at SM North, was found dead near Thomas A. Edison Elementary School in Kansas City, KS on Sunday, according to police.

On Monday the KC Star reported that residents in the area heard four or five gunshots at around 11:30 p.m. Saturday. Kansas City, Kan. police have arrested two suspects, East students Stephen A. Reed and Shane Reed, in response to the shooting. Stephen and Shane are cousins and Prairie Village residents.

According to the Wyandotte County District Attorney’s office, Stephen, 16, has been charged with first-degree murder and criminal possession of a firearm by a juvenile. Shane, 17, was charged with aiding a felon and criminal possession of a firearm by a juvenile.

Both Stephen and Shane were charged as juveniles in Wyandotte County District Court, according to a press release. A Wyandotte County District Judge ordered both of them detained pending status hearings, which will occur on May 16 for Stephen and May 20 for Shane.

The District Attorney’s office filed motions requesting the court to allow both Reeds to be tried as adults.

Associate Principal Steve Loe said in a phone call to East homes that school officials are working with local law enforcement on the case. Loe called the shooting “an isolated incident that is not school-related.”

A candlelight vigil was held in Spillman’s memory on Tuesday night (pictured below right) at the Roeland Park Skate Park, a place Spillman and his friends frequented.

According to Dr. Krawitz, he has received “minimal” concern over the shooting from parents. Dr. Krawitz said the administration’s biggest enemies right now are social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter and the rumors circulating there. According to Dr. Krawitz, East has had a problem all year with conflicts happening online “playing themselves out for real” at school.

Dr. Krawitz said East began having problems with the students involved in Saturday night’s shooting at the beginning of the year. According to Dr. Krawitz, East received “a lot” of students over last summer “who were not Shawnee Mission East students, per se,” referring to the fact than many of the students came to the school from outside of the district.

“Unfortunately those folks that came in brought with them a lot of baggage,” Dr. Krawitz said.

Early in the year, East had an uncharacteristically high number of fights, Dr. Krawtiz said. The increase in violence Dr. Krawitz attributes to the fact that many of the students involved were new to the building and didn’t know each other. As the semester came to a close, he said, the opposing students joined together as what is now New Mafia.

“Earlier in the year when there was a fight between these two outside entities, it ended up in court and, ironically, when the court date was set it was set in second semester and it never got to court,” Dr. Krawitz said. “It got settled out of court because the parties…involved in the earlier [fight], now they were together in this new group.”

Dr. Krawitz classifies New Mafia as “a group inside [East] of folks that want to have an identity.” He said New Mafia had not been involved in illegal activities before Saturday’s shooting.

“At no point up until this incident Saturday night has that group ever been associated in any other crimes.”

According to Dr. Krawtiz, New Mafia members are known to hang out around the Prairie Village Skate Park. But categorizing New Mafia as a group of “skaters” isn’t accurate, he said.

“We do have kids at our building who are skaters, as people would label them,” Dr. Krawitz said. “But they aren’t New Mafia people. Very few of the New Mafia skate.”

Contact Logan Heley by emailing him directly at loganheley@gmail.com.