Reporter identified as victim in Kansas City shooting

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (NEXSTAR) — A local reporter has been identified as the victim of a shooting Friday afternoon in Kansas City, Missouri.

According to police, officers responded to a welfare call with EMS at 3:17 p.m. Friday at an apartment.

When officers and members of the Kansas City Fire Department arrived, they found the victim inside suffering from an apparent gunshot wound. The victim was taken to an area hospital and was listed in critical condition.

According to NRP station KCUR in Kansas City, the victim died from her injuries and has been identified as 24-year-old Aviva Okeson-Haberman, a reporter at the station.

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“Our KCUR family is heartbroken over the tragic loss of our talented colleague, Aviva,” said KCUR General Manager Sarah Morris.

“Her obituary that was written by her grieving colleagues captures so much about her bright spirit and promising future. While Aviva’s family, friends and colleagues are devastated by this, our grief is no more significant than all the other families who are suffering over the loss of their loved ones due to senseless gun violence. The best way we can honor Aviva is through our continued commitment to serving the greater Kansas City community through our journalism.”

KCUR said Okeson-Haberman joined KCUR in June 2019 as the Missouri politics and government reporter, having interned at the station a year earlier. She graduated from the Missouri School of Journalism at the University of Missouri in 2019.

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas also mourned her passing in a series of tweets.

“Aviva was a creative, thorough, challenging, and insightful reporter. Always prepared, she told the full and complex story of our city in one of the most challenging years in its history. Her life showed us her compassion for those who too often were voiceless. Her death lays bare our gravest unsolved epidemic and the preventable tragedies too many families endure. I will miss Aviva. My heart and my thoughts go to her family, her friends, her colleagues, and a community that respected her and will miss out on all she had to share ahead.”
Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas