Prior Offenses Revealed for Accused Wyandotte County Deputy Killer

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Shawn Harris, the man accused of killing Wyandotte County Deputy Elijah Ming, is not listed on the KBI’s Public Offender Registry – but some say he should be.

“Had Shawn Harris been prosecuted…properly, he would have been in prison, and he would not have been in a position where he could have killed Deputy Ming,” said James Spies, an attorney in the Kansas City Metro.

Spies said, in 2024, Harris picked up two felonies for separate cases in Anderson County, Kansas.

“The first was failure to register as an offender, so what that tells me is he had some prior qualifying conviction.”

Under Kansas law, Harris was required to register.

“There was a charge filed against him, indicating or alleging that he had not registered as required, then he picks up abuse of a child in Anderson County,” Spies told FOX4. “That case itself, if convicted, would have carried up to 136 months in prison because of his prior criminal record. The failure to register would have carried 46 months in prison, due to his prior criminal record.

“What I understand is that the child abuse case went to a preliminary hearing, but he was not bound over for trial for child abuse. The judge did not find probable cause, so he was facing two misdemeanors in the case. In a plea agreement, he pleaded guilty to those two misdemeanors, and the State agreed to dismiss the offender registration violation.”

Spies said someone wouldn’t necessarily be sent to prison for their first offense of violating the Kansas Registration Act.

“However, while that case is pending, he gets charged with abuse of a child and you as a prosecutor are so firmly convinced that he commended that crime even, in the face of the judge, that does not bind him over, the way to see to it that he is punished, is to insist upon that prison sentence of that offender violation,” he said.

“Let’s say it was even plea negotiated down to 24 months, he would have been in prison instead of shooting Deputy Ming.”

Harris was charged in March 2024 for violating the Kansas Offender Registration Act after failing to report in February. It was then dismissed.

“It says he failed to report a job change,” Spies said, looking over court documents.

“Then (the) Order of Dismissal in December 2024.”

For the two battery counts in Anderson County, “It looks like time served [was] just 208 days in jail.”

Seven months later, he was accused of killing a Kansas deputy.

“In the case of Shawn Harris, he was convicted back in 2012, 2013…[for] a robbery charge,” Spies said.

“Wyandotte County did their job; in that case, sounds like sending him to prison for 10+ years.”

“Shawn Harris had a criminal history in Kansas that is the worst scorable criminal history in Kansas – an ‘A’, which demonstrates a history of violent offenses on his record,” Spies said.

“Based on that criminal history, if a prosecutor in Anderson County had insisted on a guilty plea to the offender registration, he would have been looking at prison. He would have been looking at up to 46 months in prison, and even if they would have cut him some sort of plea deal, where they had reduced the amount of time, likely he would have been in prison instead of shooting Deputy Ming.”

FOX4 reached out to the Prosecuting Attorney in Anderson County at the time, who decided to dismiss the offender registration violation. We have not heard back.

FOX4 also reached out to the Garnett, Kansas Police Department (an agency listed in court records related to Harris’ child abuse and battery counts). The Chief of Police had no comment and referred us to the County Attorney’s office.

On Friday, FOX4 received a response from Anderson County’s current county attorney, Steve Wilson, who shared the following statement:

“Any suggestion by my predecessor that the court failed in its responsibility to the public would certainly be misplaced. At a preliminary (probable cause) hearing the bar is very low, but the prosecution must show that there is probable cause to believe a crime was committed and that the defendant committed said crime. After hearing the evidence presented by the prosecutor, the court determined that the prosecution did not meet the standard necessary to bind the defendant over for trial. The court can not be faulted for doing its job.”

Earlier this week, Harris and his attorneys pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, brought down by Wyandotte County District Attorney Mark Dupree, in relation to Deputy Ming’s death; those include one count of capital murder and one count of criminal possession of a weapon by a felon.

He is being held on a $2 million bond.

Harris’ next court appearance is scheduled for Aug. 21. He remains behind bars in Johnson County, Kansas. Harris is being represented by the Kansas Death Penalty Defense Unit.