The Kansas City (Mo.) Police Department arrested one woman and continues to search for a second suspect after an alert bus driver spotted them attempting to enter vehicles in the Park Hill High School parking lot while a large wrestling tournament took place inside.
Leilani Criswell
According to court documents, authorities responded to a call at about 2 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 2 when the charter bus driver for one of the participating teams noticed two individuals pulled into the parking lot in a gray pickup truck. A white female, later identified as 37-year-old Leilani Criswell of Kansas City, Mo., remained in the car while a male went around and pulled on the door handles of parked vehicles.
The male later returned to the truck, parked near the bus with the reporting witness, and pulled out a pink purse from under his shirt.
When officers approached the suspect vehicle, the unidentified male was in the driver’s seat and fled the scene. He was unable to be located, and as of deadline, no charges had been filed against him.
Criswell was later found standing outside of the school, and a computer check revealed multiple outstanding warrants for her. After being placed under arrest, officers located a loaded .32 caliber revolver in the front waistband of her pants.
In a later interview, Criswell allegedly admitted to borrowing the revolver and accepting a ride from an acquaintance she called “Chris” in the gray Ford F-250 — determined to be stolen out of Sedalia, Mo. She denied knowing the truck was stolen.
The suspect vehicle was later recovered about a mile from Park Hill High School with the pink purse still inside. The purse was determined to belong to a person with a vehicle parked in the lot and was later returned.
Criswell remains in custody at the Jackson County Detention Center and faces a felony count of unlawful use of a weapon for carrying the gun onto a school campus and a misdemeanor for tampering with a motor vehicle.