Self-Defense Claim

KANSAS CITY STAR — One of four men charged with first-degree murder in the botched robbery of the She’s a Pistol store in January acted in self-defense, his lawyers claim.

De’Anthony Wiley is one of the defendants charged in the Jan. 9 shootout which left Jon Bieker, the Shawnee store’s co-owner, dead.

A Johnson County judge on Friday scheduled a Jan. 27 hearing for Wiley. The brief Friday court session included no discussion of the merits of Wiley’s claim.

Afterward Becky Bieker, widow of Jon Bieker, rejected the self-defense argument.

“They came in to rob our store,” Bieker said outside the Johnson County Courthouse in Olathe.

“They had a plan, they had guns and they were prepared to kill to carry out that plan,” she said. “They did not plan on Jon fighting back. They do not get to now claim self-defense because Jon fought back and they killed him in the process.”

An uncle of Wiley, meanwhile, said he supported his nephew’s self-defense claim.

“De’Anthony surrendered,” said Cedrick Gipson.

“He gave up the first time, he told them ‘Hey, I give up.’ And then you continue to shoot a man, you’re shooting to kill him…he gave up the first time, they should have left it at that. He’s given up.”

On Thursday lawyers representing Wiley filed documents stating their client was seeking immunity from the first-degree murder charge.

Kansas law, they maintained, includes provisions that offer immunity in instances in which an individual who began an altercation “gives up” and “communicates the intent” to surrender.

Wiley, according to court documents, “specifically communicated his intent to surrender to Jon Bieker.” Despite that, the documents say, “Mr. Bieker continued to advance and/or fire upon the defendant and the three codefendants.”

The exchange left Wiley, who suffered a gunshot wound to the spine, paralyzed, “therefore unable to further escape,” according to the documents.

The documents also allege that the “degree of force” used by Bieker and his wife during the shootout exceed “that which was lawfully necessary to protect property and a place of business in the face of retreating defendants, all of whom were shot in the back.”

This use of force by the Biekers was unlawful, the documents maintain, and that Wiley was “justified in using deadly force in defense of himself…”

All four defendants — Wiley, Londro Patterson III, Nicquan Midgyett and Hakeem Malik — have been charged with first-degree murder, along with other charges.

In July Wiley waived his preliminary hearing and his lawyers said he intended to plead guilty.

Angela Keck, a lawyer representing Wiley, could not be reached for comment.

According to court documents, a video from that Jan. 9 incident shows suspects entering the store, then located in a Shawnee strip mall at 5725 Nieman Road, and pointing guns at Becky Bieker, who gets punched and knocked to the floor.

Jon Bieker comes from a back room and appears to fire a weapon, according to the documents. Three of the robbers flee out the door. One ends up on the floor. As Jon Bieker approaches him, Bieker appears to get shot and falls to the floor.

Becky Bieker can be seen on the video firing a weapon in the direction of the robber on the floor.

Shawnee police officers responding to the store just after 2 p.m. found Patterson on the parking lot outside the store, and then found Wiley and Jon Bieker inside the store, both wounded.

A short time later, officers found Midgyett and Malik on the back porch of a nearby home.

According to testimony presented by Becky Bieker in July, she and her husband were the only ones in the store that day when a young man wearing a wig came in and asked about a gun. Bieker said she handed him a handgun.

The man was talking on a cellphone when several other young men came in, she said. That was when, she added, the first man pulled a gun and pointed it at her.

In the subsequent exchange of gunfire, four shots hit Jon Bieker, according to the doctor who performed the autopsy.

At the Jan,. 27 hearing still another hearing could be scheduled, at which Wiley’s self-defense claim could be argued.

Wiley, who attended Friday’s hearing in a wheelchair, faces an uncertain future, said Gipson.

“It is scary for him,” he said. “De’Anthony had a future. He had things he wanted to do in his life. I dont believe he intentionally did this…I don’t believe it.”

Becky Bieker, meanwhile, said Friday that she was not upset by the self-defense claim.

“This is just another stepping stone in the process,” she said.