Daniel DeHaan chuckles as he recalls a childhood moment with his younger brother Michael DeHaan, who was torn from loved ones when he was fatally shot while his car was being stolen at a Kansas City gas station in August.
That cherished memory from years ago is like a scene out of the comedy movie “Step Brothers,” Daniel DeHaan says.
It goes like this: the two were about the same size, Daniel took a pair of jeans that belonged to Michael, who didn’t want him wearing them. They wound up out in the yard wrestling over the jeans.
“My mom comes home, and me and my brother were rolling around on the front yard, he’s trying to pull my pants off,” Daniel DeHaan says. “He wanted them back, and I wasn’t giving them back.”
It’s a memory that provides a moment of respite from the pain of the last few weeks.
“It’s still all a bad dream to me,” he says, back in the present, his brother’s name now memorialized in a tattoo on his right arm. “I’m still waiting to wake up from it. But the reality is, I know that I’m not.”
The shooting
Michael DeHaan, 33, was fatally shot when a man approached him at the BP gas station at the intersection of Linwood Boulevard and Indiana Avenue in Kansas City Aug. 21, according to court documents.
DeHaan was pumping gas just before the alleged shooter, who authorities have identified as Lorenzo Johnson, fired at him as DeHaan was backing away, stole his car, ran over DeHaan’s body and later that day led law enforcement on a chase before he was arrested, police said.
“The way he was taken is what hurts the most,” said his mother, Tammy DeHaan. “We’ll never see that smile again. Something that didn’t have to be.”
Prosecutors charged Johnson with second-degree murder, first-degree robbery, unlawful use of a weapon, unlawful possession of a firearm, resisting arrest and three counts of armed criminal action in Jackson County Circuit Court.
Johnson made an initial appearance in court Thursday and was referred for a public defender. He is being held without bond. His next hearing is scheduled for Sept. 25.
“There was no point in doing what you did,” Daniel DeHaan said of Johnson. “Not only did you take a man’s life, you took a son, a brother, a father, an uncle.”
‘Just a good dude’
Loved ones are left with only memories of Michael DeHaan’s kindness, how he watched over his mother, his sense of humor, his quick wit, his generosity. DeHaan’s 11-year-old daughter is now left without a father.
He’d always have a pair of gym shorts on, was handy and enjoyed working on vehicles. He favored the color blue. He’d take out trash and clear snow away for neighbors.
“If you needed him, he was always there,” said Megan DeHaan, Daniel DeHaan’s wife. “You could call him and he’d be there, figure out a way somehow to be there or figure it out.”
Even as a boy, Michael DeHaan had a heart for helping.
Reflecting on her cousin’s life, Rachel Conner relayed a story of how, as a teenager, he assisted another family member with a move out of an apartment in triple-digit temperatures, without air conditioning.
“That kid worked his butt off for eight hours in 100-degree heat helping her clean this apartment and move stuff out,” she said. “I don’t know many 13-year-old kids that would do that. He’d do that for anybody.”
Even in death, Michael DeHaan had something to give. His mother learned her son had reregistered as an organ donor earlier this year, and she proceeded with his wishes.
“He was just a good dude,” said Conner, who arranged a GoFundMe page to raise money for Michael’s family.
“He was the kind of guy that got along with everybody, never met a stranger,” she said. “It didn’t matter where you came from or what your background was or what color you were, the kid didn’t care. If you were good people, he could read that about you and that’s all he needed to know.”
As kids, the DeHaan brothers would fight over Pokémon cards. They were pranksters and goofballs.
One day, they decided they would sled down a roof together. Remarkably, no one came away with injuries. The two were all smiles in the moments after the rush. Their mother caught the escapade, and the brothers lost their toboggan for the rest of the winter.
“Me and him were always getting into things,” Daniel DeHaan said.
They had been close as kids, then life took them their separate ways.
Recently, Daniel DeHaan sent his brother a friend request on Facebook. He knows his brother will never respond now. It’s the kind of little thing that looms large in a moment like this.
“What kills the most throughout all of this,” Daniel DeHaan said, pausing for a moment to poke at his phone and look at the still-pending request, “…is to know that that will never be answered.”
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