On Friday evening, Jan. 10, around 7 p.m., the Kansas City Police Department responded to the area of southbound Interstate 29 near Northwest 72nd Street on a report of a vehicle that ran off the interstate and was resting near the barrier fence next to Prairie View Road. Officers located the vehicle and observed that a single male occupant, Dennis Sharkey, was in the vehicle and was non-responsive. The victim appeared to have suffered a gunshot wound. Aid was rendered at the scene and the victim was transported to an area hospital where he was declared deceased.
During the preliminary investigation of the incident, it was determined that the offense occurred outside of the city limits of Kansas City, Missouri, so the investigation was turned over to the Platte County Sheriff’s Office which is now the lead agency. The Platte County Sheriff’s Office has requested the assistance of the Metro Squad in the investigation and the squad was convened on Saturday, Jan. 11.
It has been reported that Platte County law enforcement officials are aware that two vehicles stopped on the interstate for some sort of incident. The suspect is then believed to have gotten out of his or her vehicle before firing a single shot into Sharkey’s vehicle as he was attempting to get away.
On Tuesday, Jan. 14, the Platte County Sheriff’s Office released a description of Sharkey’s vehicle, a white 2019 Chevrolet Spark. Those who may have seen the vehicle in the area are asked to contact police.
Authorities have reported that camera footage from area businesses has aided in the investigation somewhat, but there is little else to go on. The Platte County Sheriff’s Office is asking that if there was anyone in the area of I-29 between Barry Road and NW 72nd Street near the time of the incident who observed anything that may be relevant to the investigation to please contact the TIPS hotline at 816-474-TIPS (8477).
Dennis Sharkey was a well-known journalist and sports photographer in Missouri. He graduated from Northwest Missouri State University in 2006 with a degree in journalism carrying a 3.5 grade point average and was the editor of the university’s newspaper, the Northwest Missourian.
Dennis has worked for many newspapers in the area to include the Oskaloosa, Kansas, Independent, the Leavenworth, Kansas, Times, the Platte County Landmark, the Mexico Ledger, the Mound City News, and most recently, the Platte County Citizen.
Dennis worked at the Mound City News for about three years covering sports and other news. He made several friends and garnered respect with his reporting of the news. He was well educated in news coverage and had a great interest in historic events. He was very good with fact checking and knew the freedom of the Sunshine Law in reporting. He had the gift of remembering dates, times, facts and other happenings in follow-up reporting. Those he worked with at the Mound City News commented that, “Dennis could go to a commission meeting or a farming workshop and find several more stories to do just from attending one event.”
When the Platte County Citizen needed a sports editor in 2020, Dennis found a way to move back to the Kansas City area to help with his mother Nancy’s and her husband’s care. In May, 2023, Dennis moved to Mexico, Mo., to work at the Ledger as editor. He was responsible for directing the newspaper’s news coverage and editorial focus. In July, 2024, the Platte County Citizen once again needed a sports editor/reporter. Dennis again answered the call to cover sports in Platte County, trying to cover all four school districts on a part-time basis.
Dennis made his own schedule to cover what sporting events he thought were important each week. It is believed that he may have covered a girls’ basketball game or a wrestling match and then headed to Riverside to cover the Park Hill and Park Hill South boys’ basketball game when the incident occurred.
Over the years, Dennis won several awards for his news stories and photographs. Although Dennis was a tried and true Kansas City Chiefs’ fan, being a season ticket holder for many years, he especially enjoyed covering the Platte County R-3 state champion football team this past fall. He had the honor of covering many successful athletes from Missouri and Kansas schools over the years, as well as getting acquainted with many business people, lawmakers, county and city officials, and most importantly, area residents. His knowledge of the northwest Missouri and southeast Kansas area allowed him to report on many stories of interest during his career and his reporting experience will certainly be missed by those who benefitted from it.
In August 2020, when Dennis started at the Platte County Citizen, feature reporter Rimsie McConiga interviewed Dennis:
The top priority for the Platte County Citizen’s news editor, Dennis Sharkey, is focusing on sports and local schools, depending on how COVID-19 impacts both, but policy will be his major focus.
After serving as news editor at Mound City News in Mound City, for three years, Sharkey made the move to the Platte City area to work for the Citizen. Both papers are owned by Adam and Will Johnson.
Longtime reporter and former assistant editor, Jeanette Faubion, will continue as managing editor.
When Sharkey was at Maple Woods Community College he didn’t really know what he wanted to major in but when he took a class in pop culture he realized, with the help of a teacher, that journalism was the path he wanted to follow.
“The class was taught by a guy named Dave Sharp,” Sharkey said. “Sharp also taught the class for the student magazine on campus. One day in class Sharp asked if anyone thought that being a freelance writer sounded like a cool job. I was one of two people that raised their hands. After class Sharp talked me into joining the magazine. I already had a friend who was on the magazine so I agreed to do it and the rest is history.”
He will be covering a lot more sports’ teams than he covered in Mound City.
“As Mr. (Will) Johnson outlined in his column (in the Citizen) a few weeks ago, the resources are limited but we’re going to cover all the sports to the best of our abilities,” Sharkey said.
Although Holt County is probably the least populated and smallest community Sharkey ever covered when he worked for the Mound City News, he said the news never stopped.
“It doesn’t matter where I am, I’ll find interesting things to cover, it’s exciting,” Sharkey said.
The biggest story he covered in Mound City was the March flood of 2019 and aspects of it are still developing and it is still generating weekly stories. Sharkey plans on staying involved in that.
“The federal government has turned its back on many of the flood’s poorest victims and there’s a lot of questions unanswered,” Sharkey said. “Unfortunately Gov. Mike Parson’s administration has been secretive about the issue and has brushed those folks off. Currently we’re following a court case that the Missouri Press Association is also involved in that will hopefully give us the tools we need to find out what’s going on. Of course the other important stories are always Friday Night Lights and hot winter nights in the gym.”
As far as the Platte County area, for now he will focus on how COVID-19 will impact residents’ lives moving forward and the economic repercussions. He is looking forward to delving into many local issues including how COVID will affect school funding.
Many issues will be similar to what he covered in Mound City. “Who doesn’t have a problem with roads,” Sharkey said. “I will say there is little crime in Holt County, so that’s going to be new. Platte County is one of the fastest growing counties in the state and region which means there’s a lot of stuff going on. On the other hand the county is diverse. There’s a lot of smaller communities and a robust agriculture scene, so I’m looking forward to getting more involved in that aspect of news coverage.”
Although journalism has changed immensely since Sharkey’s junior college teacher sparked his interest in the profession, he says that while social media has been a radical change from the days of print media exclusively, he believes the more things change, the more some things stay the same.
“Social media has been a great tool for organizing and giving a voice to the normal person who in the past was just lost in the shuffle of cards,” said Sharkey. “Journalism is still the same and there’s still a lot of great journalism happening. Social media in many ways has replaced journalism and that’s not good. Instead of relying on facts to make decisions many people are instead relying on opinions to make decisions.”
He believes it’s important for small towns to support their local newspapers because the newspapers support their communities.
“There’s data that shows that communities that lose their local paper often end up with lower bond ratings for their local governments and corruption develops,” Sharkey said. “If no one is watching, what’s going to stop corrupt government officials from doing what they want with no consequences?”
Sharkey is from the local area and excited to start a new job at the Citizen. “It’s going to be cool covering events that my friends and family are going to be interested in and it’s going to be fun serving them,” Sharkey said. “On the selfish side it will make my personal life a lot better.”
Possible memorial service in the spring
Will Johnson, co-publisher of the Citizen, visited with Dennis’s cousin, Samantha Sharkey, of Raytown. Samantha said she spent time with Dennis at many Kansas City Royals’ baseball games and mentioned that his birthday was on Thursday, Jan. 9. Samantha said that it was just a few days earlier that Dennis had found his stepfather deceased from an apparent heart attack.
Samantha has started a Go Fund Me page to help Dennis’s mother with funeral costs. At the time of publication, the fund raiser had collected about $7,000 in donations.
Samantha said that Dennis had just started working for Tyson Foods delivering chicken to area stores for additional income to help in the care of his mother.
Samantha commented that their family has discussed a memorial service in the spring, most likely in the Kansas City Northland area. Dennis was not married and had no children. He did, however, have a large family of cousins and their children.