On the night of April 30, 2021, 14-year-old Abdurahman Abdulaziz and his 16-year-old brother Abdulwahid Abdulaziz were shot and killed outside their apartment near 8th and Olive streets in Kansas City after returning from Ramadan services at the Somali Center of Kansas City. Both boys were pronounced dead at the scene. Family and community members remembered them as active in their faith, often leading prayers, and as young men who enjoyed playing basketball and had hopes of becoming imams.

Investigators quickly focused on a domestic suspect identified as the brothers’ older sibling, 25-year-old Hanad A. Abdiaziz. Family members told police Hanad had previously made threats and had assaulted his father in 2019. A 10-year-old brother witnessed the shooting, reported seeing Hanad wearing a black ski mask and reloading a gun, and then ran inside for safety. An arrest warrant was issued for Hanad.

On the evening of May 1, 2021, Kansas City police located Hanad near Missouri Avenue and Maple Boulevard. When officers tried to make contact he presented a short-barreled rifle and an officer fired, killing him. The officer-involved shooting was turned over to the Missouri State Highway Patrol while the Kansas City Police Department continued the homicide investigation into the two teenagers’ deaths.

Did anyone in the Kansas City Somali community have contact with the brothers or information about events that night?