Threats sent to prosecutor who decided against charges in shooting of KC firefighter

Jackson County’s top prosecutor has received numerous threats after announcing that the woman who shot and killed an off-duty Kansas City firefighter would not be charged due to Missouri’s ‘stand your ground’ law.

On Oct. 6, 41-year-old Anthony Santi was shot in the back by a woman as he held a man in a headlock outside a gas station, court records show. The Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office later said they would not pursue criminal charges against the shooter because of Missouri’s laws governing defense of oneself or another person.

On Monday, the prosecutor and other employees began receiving numerous threatening, racist and sexist calls and voicemails, the office said in a news release.

The prosecutor’s office shared one of the voicemails directed at Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker, which included racist and sexist slurs.

“We’re going to burn your f---ing house,” the called said. “We’re f---ing coming for you.”

The shooting

Santi was shot around 2:30 p.m. Oct. 6 outside a gas station in Independence, police said at the time.

The off-duty firefighter decided to intervene when a customer, 23-year-old Ja’Von L. Taylor, argued with a clerk who told Taylor the gas station didn’t have the cigars he wanted, according to court records. The store clerk and Santi both tried telling Taylor to leave after he was refused service.

Taylor then “jumped away” from Santi and started threatening him, court records show. Surveillance video from the incident captured the men moving their argument outside, where Taylor reached into a white SUV and pulled out a gun.

The men then began fighting over the weapon — a firearm with an extended magazine, according to court documents. When Santi put Taylor in a headlock, a female passenger got out of the vehicle, grabbed the gun and pointed it at Santi, after first trying to break up the fight. She later shot him in the back.

‘Stand your ground’ law

The Jackson County prosecutor’s office in their news release Monday revealed more about the moments leading up to the shooting.

“Once outside, the facts specifically demonstrate that the shooting female fired a single shot in defense of the man who was being strangled,” they wrote.

A witness at the scene with professional medical training told police that Taylor, while in a headlock, was “totally defenseless.”

Taylor couldn’t talk or breathe and was turning purple, the witness told police. He also said Taylor’s eyes began rolling back in his head.

“The witness believed that he heard the victim of the shooting say to the man he was choking, ‘I’m killing you,’” the prosecutor’s office said.

The woman holding the gun begged Santi to stop as her hands shook, the prosecutor’s office said of the witnesses’ testimony.

“These statements and video evidence from the convenience store support the defense of others provision as codified in Missouri law,” the office wrote Monday. “Because of this, as stated, Missouri’s self-defense and defense of others law required that this case be declined.”

After he was shot once in the back, Santi let go of Taylor and walked back into the store where he collapsed and died, court records show.

According to his obituary, Santi joined the Kansas City Fire Department in 2011, where he was “dedicated to helping people through his role” as a firefighter and EMT.

His daughter was “the light of his life.”

While the woman was not charged, federal prosecutors did charge Taylor in U.S. District Court in Kansas City for alleged possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

The Star’s Andrea Klick contributed.