• About Us
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
Monday, March 1, 2021
23 °f
Platte
49 ° Wed
49 ° Thu
49 ° Fri
48 ° Sat
The Platte County Landmark Newspaper
  • Home
  • Local News
  • Opinion
  • Landmark Live!
  • Looking Backward
  • Home
  • Local News
  • Opinion
  • Landmark Live!
  • Looking Backward
No Result
View All Result
The Platte County Landmark Newspaper
No Result
View All Result

It wasn’t your average morning at the DMV

Ivan Foley by Ivan Foley
July 16, 2019
in Between the Lines
5
SHARES
118
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare via Email

It’s one of the things I like about this newspaper gig. I was sitting at my desk mid-day Tuesday, thinking to myself: “Self, this has been kind of a slow news week.”

Next thing you know comes word of a shooting outside the Parkville DMV by a woman who wasn’t happy with the wait time. Listen, we’ve all been frustrated at the DMV. Wait time at the DMV is as expected as death and taxes. But firing a gun in response to the situation seems a little extreme to me. (Interesting sidenote: court records The Landmark has looked at indicate the woman was been ticketed three times in recent years for failure to register a vehicle. Apparently she really hates these trips to the DMV).

RelatedNews

Investigations, rolling outages and building south

Concerts and conspiracy theories and such

Puffy coat alert and autopsy on the Super Bowl

Then a bit later Tuesday we got a tip of trouble for a Parkville police officer, charged with domestic assault and firing a weapon in a neighborhood just a bit outside the city limits of Platte City. The officer is now a former officer, having resigned on Monday after being arrested and charged over the weekend.

Never a dull week. Even when you’re starting to think it’s headed that way mid-day on a Tuesday.


Tom Hutsler is a longtime business owner/property owner in downtown Parkville. If you’re a longtime reader of The Landmark, you probably recognize his name as a longtime friendly acquaintance of the Between the Lines column. Hutsler was at the DMV when the shooting incident detailed on our front page went down.

Hutsler, to his credit, took an active role in preventing the situation from turning into something worse than it was. That he did so is not a surprise to me. I’ve known him for 15 or 20 years and can verify for you that Tom Hutsler has never been shy about scrapping–verbally or otherwise–when he feels the need.

I caught up with Hutsler via phone after the incident. Here is how the situation played out from his point of view.

“I went there with my 12-year-old son, Tommy. We had waited in line 20 minutes when I realized I had brought the wrong paperwork, so we left and came back an hour later. The lines were just as long when we came back. There were about 50 people in there,” Hutsler says.

When they returned inside the DMV, there was a very aggressive woman at the counter. She had apparently cut in line. “She was cussing, upset, making a lot of comments, including one comment about it being a matter of national security, she needed a second ID,” Tom explains. He said this went on for several minutes before somebody else in line remarked to the effect he had heard enough and “told her to shut up.” Hutsler says an employee headed to the back, apparently to call police. The suspect then said “I’m sure you’re calling the police,” and headed to the door, but before she left the building made a comment to the effect of “you haven’t seen the last of this.”

Hutsler says he told his son to stay in the line, while Tom followed the woman out the door. He said the woman walked outside, pulled a gun out of her bag and shot into the landscaping island. He said he only heard one shot, others have said there were two shots fired. “If there were two it had to be in very quick succession, I only heard one,” he says. Hutsler then engaged the woman in conversation, which distracted her as well as bought time for police to arrive on the scene. “I told her she wasn’t coming back into the building. She asked who I was. I said ‘you don’t want to know.’ She stopped in the middle of the street, then walked to her car. I got in my truck and pulled it to an area between her car and the building,” Hutsler says.

About that time, a man appeared on the sidewalk holding a pistol. Hutsler says he asked the man if he was an off-duty police officer. The man responded yes, he was an off-duty KCPD officer. For about four or five minutes, Hutsler and the off-duty officer stood behind Hutsler’s truck and watched the woman, who was in her car at the time. The off-duty officer was communicating with police dispatch.

“She then decides to get out of her car and the off-duty officer (with pistol drawn) started walking toward her. He ordered her on the ground. She asked who he was. I think he identified himself. She wasn’t following his orders to get on the ground,” Hutsler recalls.

So with the off-duty officer’s weapon trained on the woman, Hutsler approached the woman, who jail records indicate is 5’10” and 190 pounds. “I wrapped her up and took her to the ground, sat her on her butt,” Hutsler said. “She was crazed, out of control and upset. I didn’t know what she was going to do.” The off-duty officer asked her where the gun was, she said it was in her bag. After several minutes, police officers arrived on the scene, handcuffed the woman and found her weapon in the bag, Hutsler says.

What would have happened had Hutsler and the off-duty officer not been there?

“I believe she had every intention of going back in there. I wasn’t going to let her back in. There were 50 people in there, including kids. My son was in there. I won the war of words with her,” Hutsler told me.

Hutsler said he believes the off-duty officer had been in the DMV at the time the lady was getting verbal with staff, but is not sure. “And I don’t know if he had his weapon with him while inside or if he had gone out to his vehicle to get it.” Hutsler’s first sighting of the off-duty officer is when he saw the man standing on the sidewalk with pistol in hand.

“I’m glad the off-duty officer was there and glad he was armed. She didn’t even listen to him so who knows what she was going to do?” Hutsler said.


So what happened inside the DMV office while all this was going on outside?

“They said when they heard the shots they ordered everybody behind the counter and locked the doors,” Hutsler says.

Tom says one of the DMV employees told him while she was taking a hiding position behind the counter “a young boy came flying over the counter” and she pulled him in close to her. It was Hutsler’s son.

“It was a very hectic morning,” Hutsler summarized.

That’s a bit of an understatement.

(Get more Between the Lines on Twitter @ivanfoley and on Facebook at Platte County Landmark. Email Foley at ivan@plattecountylandmark.com)

Tags: parkvilleplatte cityplatte countypolicePublic Safetytaxes
Ivan Foley

Ivan Foley

Ivan Foley is owner/editor/publisher of the Platte County Landmark. Foley has been on the news beat in Platte County with The Landmark for 38 years, specializing in local government issues and accountability journalism. He has penned multiple award-winning investigative pieces. He provides weekly observations and editorial commentary in his Between the Lines column and serves as host of Landmark Live, a light-hearted videocast featuring newsmakers and events in the Northland. During his time at the helm of The Landmark, the newspaper has been awarded on multiple occasions for General Excellence in the Missouri Press Association’s Better Newspaper Contest. In 2016, Foley won the Tom and Pat Gish Award, a national honor given by the School of Journalism and Media at the University of Kentucky for displaying courage, tenacity and integrity in rural journalism. A big fan of the Chiefs and Royals, Foley resides in Platte County not far from KCI Airport.

Related Posts

45 Years Ago–February 27, 1976

by Ivan Foley
February 26, 2021
0

Mr. and Mrs. Allen Buxton of Weston announce the birth of their daughter, Valerie Sue, on Sunday, Feb. 22, 1976 at St. John Hospital in Leavenworth. Mrs. Buxton formerly worked at Bobbi's Hair Fashions in Platte City. Doug Hunt, Platte...

30 Years Ago–March 1, 1991

by Ivan Foley
February 26, 2021
0

The Platte City Chamber of Commerce Thursday heard Mayor Steve Wegner deliver a "State of the City" address. The KCI Conference of Schools, hosted by Smithville R-2 School District and Parents as Teachers, will present "The Power of Positive Parenting"...

15 Years Ago–February 23, 2006

by Ivan Foley
February 26, 2021
0

The call to serve his country has come once again for State Rep. Jason Brown of Platte City. Brown, a member of the United States Army Reserves, told The Landmark that he has been called to fulfill a one year...

State of transportation

State of transportation

by Landmark Staff
February 26, 2021
0

EDITOR: We often take our roads and bridges for granted. We trust them to hold our cars up and to get us to work, school, or home. We're thankful for the crews that maintain them and - especially this week...

Next Post

Will local principal become ex-principal after controversial tweet?

Popular News

  • Vaccine shot

    Around 1,700 shots to be offered in the next week

    16 shares
    Share 6 Tweet 4
  • City ‘finds’ 2,300 records, gives them to Jason Maki

    15 shares
    Share 6 Tweet 4
  • Why the urgency for R-3 bond issue?

    15 shares
    Share 6 Tweet 4
  • County health department eases restrictions

    13 shares
    Share 5 Tweet 3
  • Investigations, rolling outages and building south

    8 shares
    Share 3 Tweet 2
  • About Us
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
Call us at 816-858-0363

Copyright © 2019-2020 The Platte County Landmark Newspaper - All Rights Reserved

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Subscribe Online
  • Local News
  • Opinion
  • Landmark Live!
  • Looking Backward

Copyright © 2019-2020 The Platte County Landmark Newspaper - All Rights Reserved

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Create New Account!

Fill the forms bellow to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In

Add New Playlist