A teenager facing charges in the Kansas City murder of Shaun Brady, the Irish restaurateur who was fatally shot outside his premises in August, has been released without charge.
The teenager, who has been identified only by the initials LM, had been held in custody since the fatal shooting of Mr Brady in August. A second teenage male, identified as KH, was similarly charged and remains in custody. A decision as to whether that suspect will be tried as a juvenile or an adult will be made at a hearing to take place later this month.
The murder of Mr Brady – who was shot outside the popular restaurant Brady’s KC he had opened with a business partner, Graham Ferris, in the Brookside area of the city – shocked the strong Irish-American community in Kansas City last summer.
While carrying rubbish outside the premises in the late afternoon, he encountered a group of people gathered by a nearby parked car. He was shot several times after some sort of altercation took place.
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Two suspects were arrested within an hour of the shooting.
Mr Brady, who was from Nenagh, Co Tipperary, was the 104th murder victim in the city so far this year. On Tuesday, after one of the teenagers was released without charge, his defence attorney stated that a miscarriage of justice had been avoided.
“What I’m saying is that they got the wrong kid,” said Matthew Merryman in a prepared statement, as reported in the Kansas City Star and a city news broadcast outlet.
“You know this case generated a ton of local and international attention and when the public outrage is so high, there is a rush to find someone and hold them accountable. Here there was a rush to judgment and LM was just the first black kid they found to pin that judgment on.”
“I personally think that Shaun would want this,” Molly Scanlon, who works as a criminal defence paralegal in Kansas City and was friends with the late Mr Brady, told The Irish Times on Wednesday.
“Shaun would not want someone to be criminally charged in the wrong. So, it is good that the young man had a competent attorney who was able to get him released quickly because that doesn’t always happen quickly in our criminal justice system.”
Mr Merryman stated that, had it not been for the intercession of “our law firm”, “this kid was a heartbeat away from becoming the next Ricky Kidd or Lamonte McIntyre” – a reference to two cases of wrongful conviction.
“This is just a kid growing up in midtown Kansas City who is trying to graduate from high school and loves to play baseball,” he added, stressing that the teenager had spent “a very trying three months in custody accused of a very heinous crime”.
“He was ripped away from his family, his intramural sports, his school, job opportunities,” he said, but did not say whether the family intend to take a case against city authorities for wrongful arrest.
The shooting took place just days before the annual IrishFest, the annual music and food festival held over the last weekend in August, which has become a big touristic event for the city. Some of the estimated 60,000 visitors to the Missouri city had already arrived when the shooting occurred.
Mr Brady was a prominent member of the weekend and his annual staple, the Sunday breakfast, was cancelled.
The local Kansas community raised over $160,000 in support of his family within days of his death. He was 44 and married to Kate, who is from Wichita, whom he met while she was travelling in Ireland. The couple moved from Chicago to Kansas City in 2013 and have two children, Seamus (12) and Mary (10).
“I think anybody who knew and loved Shaun would be happy that the wrong person is not sitting in jail,” Ms Scanlon said.
“Shaun was a wonderful man and is greatly missed here and we continue to grieve for his family. And the focus on what he would have wanted here is part of his legacy.”
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