Updated at 6 p.m. with additional details.
A Kansas City, Kansas, man who’s “well known” to police and already accused of several crimes — including first-degree murder — is charged with two counts of capital murder in the fatal shootings of two Wyandotte County sheriff’s deputies.
Antoine Fielder, 30, is also charged with aggravated robbery for forcibly taking property of one of the deputies, Wyandotte County District Attorney Mark Dupree said at a news conference Friday.
"We will try this case in a fair and impartial way because that is what the constitution says, and that is what my office and this administration has always done," Dupree said.
The charges come a week after Deputies Patrick Rohrer and Theresa King were shot and later died. Fielder also was shot several times during the incident and had to have surgery last week at the University of Kansas Hospital.
Fielder was one of two inmates that Rohrer and King were getting ready to take back to jail from the county courthouse. Dupree said Friday that Fielder allegedly overpowered the deputies and used one of their firearms to shoot them, and that officials believe he acted alone.
Dupree said bond is set at $2 million for Fielder. When asked whether the death penalty is a possibility should Fielder be found guilty of capital murder, Dupree said: "We will consider all things that are legal in the state of Kansas."
On Thursday, both deputies were honored in a joint funeral at Children’s Mercy Park.
Fielder was booked into the Johnson County Detention Center on Wednesday, where he's being held without bond on charges of aggravated robbery.
Dupree explained that he would be eventually returned to Wyandotte County.
"It is my understanding that he is there until everything is taken care of to prepare for him to come back here," Dupree said.
In April, Fielder was charged in Jackson County with first-degree murder, assault and armed criminal action in the death of Rosemarie Harmon. He also was charged with aggravated robbery, criminal possession of a firearm and intimidation of witnesses in Wyandotte County.
And in 2016, Fielder was released from jail after two mistrials related to the 2015 killing of an Overland Park woman.
Fielder had been an inmate in the Wyandotte County jail, and was to go to trial on the charges July 30. When Jackson County and Wyandotte County prosecutors announced the April murder charge, they said they were trying to protect witnesses.
Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker would not comment Friday on the new charges against Fielder because the county's case against him is pending. But her office's spokesperson Mike Mansur told KCUR that Baker and Dupree had been in communication, adding that Baker "would certainly cooperate with them in their efforts."
Andrea Tudhope is a reporter for KCUR 89.3. Email her at andreat@kcur.org, and follow her on Twitter @_tudhope.
