A jury rejected Taquiza Johnson’s defense after surveillance video showed him return to confront 71-year-old Ronald Barnett.

PLATTE CITY, Mo. — A former Kansas City police officer has been sentenced to life in prison plus 15 years for fatally shooting a 71-year-old man after a brief confrontation in a Walmart parking lot, closing the criminal case more than two years after a routine shopping trip ended in Ronald Barnett’s death.

Circuit Judge Myles Perry sentenced Taquiza Johnson, 49, on Sept. 14 to life for second-degree murder and an additional 15 years for armed criminal action. The firearm sentence must run consecutively to the murder sentence under Missouri law. The punishment matched the recommendations made by the Platte County jury that convicted Johnson after a five-day trial in June. Prosecutors said the sentence reflected evidence that Johnson had an opportunity to leave an argument behind but instead drove back toward Barnett, approached him with a gun concealed behind his back and shot him during a second confrontation.

The case began on the afternoon of Aug. 21, 2024, outside the Walmart on North Boardwalk Avenue in Kansas City’s Northland. Prosecutors said Johnson, who had been inside the store, believed Barnett drove too close to him while Johnson was walking through a crosswalk. The two exchanged words, and Barnett got out of his vehicle during the initial encounter. That argument ended without a physical fight. Barnett then drove away from the immediate area and parked his SUV in an accessible parking space, while Johnson went to his own vehicle. The distinction between that first exchange and what happened next became central to the prosecution’s case.

Walmart surveillance video showed Johnson’s vehicle stop in the driving lane behind Barnett’s SUV about a minute later, according to the Platte County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. Johnson got out with a gun hidden behind his back and approached Barnett. The men again exchanged words. Johnson then fired once, striking Barnett in the abdomen. Barnett collapsed in the parking lot, and Johnson returned to his vehicle and drove away. Paramedics took Barnett to North Kansas City Hospital, where he died a short time later. Charging records described a rapid sequence in which the encounter escalated from an argument to a fatal shooting in less than two minutes.

Authorities moved quickly after the gunfire. Police circulated information about Johnson’s vehicle, and Missouri State Highway Patrol troopers found him at a nearby apartment complex within minutes, according to reports based on the charging documents. Investigators said Johnson had changed clothes after leaving the Walmart. A firearm was recovered during the investigation. Early court records also described surveillance footage and witness accounts that helped police reconstruct the encounter. Johnson, who had already left law enforcement years before the shooting, was taken into custody and initially faced second-degree murder and armed criminal action charges.

Johnson’s status as a former officer became one of the case’s most notable facts, though he was not employed by the Kansas City Police Department when Barnett was killed. Records and police statements place Johnson’s service at roughly a decade, ending in February 2014. Prosecutors later said the weapon used in the shooting had been Johnson’s former duty gun. Platte County Prosecuting Attorney Eric Zahnd emphasized Johnson’s law-enforcement background after the conviction, saying a person who had once been a sworn officer had used that weapon to kill Barnett after an argument in a public parking lot.

The defense centered on Johnson’s claim that he feared Barnett. Johnson testified that Barnett had threatened his life during the earlier confrontation and had used racial slurs. But Johnson also acknowledged on cross-examination that Barnett was unarmed and that he had not seen a weapon in Barnett’s hand. Perry declined to instruct jurors on self-defense based on the evidence presented at trial. Zahnd later said Missouri law does not permit deadly force merely in response to verbal threats or name-calling. The jury ultimately convicted Johnson of second-degree murder and armed criminal action rather than accepting his account as justification for the shooting.

The criminal case had changed significantly before it reached trial. Johnson was first charged with second-degree murder in August 2024. Prosecutors later upgraded the murder charge to first degree in 2025, exposing him to a more serious potential conviction. The jury, however, returned a verdict on second-degree murder after the June 2026 trial. Its recommendation of life imprisonment on that count, paired with 15 years for armed criminal action, set the framework for the sentence Perry later imposed. The sentencing made the jury’s recommended punishment the actual judgment of the court.

Barnett’s family told reporters after his death that the shooting had taken away a man known for his humor, reliability and devotion to his family. His obituary said Ronald “Ron” Dean Barnett was born June 16, 1953, in Maysville, Missouri. He had four children, 11 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren and enjoyed bowling, trains and Halloween. He was an active member of a bowling league at Gladstone Bowl. His daughter, Elizabeth Moon, said in 2024 that her father had survived kidney cancer and had recently received encouraging medical news before he was killed.

Those family members remained part of the case through sentencing. The prosecutor’s office said Barnett’s daughter and granddaughter delivered emotional victim-impact statements asking Perry to impose the jury’s recommended sentence. Zahnd said after sentencing that the shooting was difficult to comprehend because it occurred in the middle of the day in the parking lot of a busy retailer. He said the jury’s life recommendation sent a strong message about how the county would respond to such violence. The comments came after more than two years in which Barnett’s relatives had followed the criminal proceedings from the initial arrest through the trial and final sentence.

The family also pursued a civil response. Moon filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Johnson in Platte County Circuit Court in February 2025 on behalf of Barnett’s wrongful-death class. The civil filing is separate from the criminal prosecution and seeks accountability through a different part of the court system. Public docket information reviewed for this report showed the action had been filed, but the criminal sentence does not by itself resolve any civil claims. The criminal case, meanwhile, was investigated by the Kansas City Police Department and prosecuted at trial by Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Joseph Findley and First Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Mark L. Gibson.

With Perry’s Sept. 14 sentence, the principal criminal proceedings over Barnett’s killing have moved from trial to punishment. Johnson now faces the life sentence imposed for second-degree murder followed by the consecutive 15-year armed criminal action term. The sentencing formalized the outcome jurors had recommended after hearing evidence about an argument that ended, resumed and became deadly in a matter of minutes.

Author note: Last updated November 6, 2026.