Ex-Kansas City, MO, Firefighter Admits Careless Driving in Off-duty Wreck
A former Kansas City firefighter who court records show had a blood alcohol concentration four times the legal limit when he crashed his pickup into a house in 2024 has entered a guilty plea to careless driving.
Kerry Gentry entered the plea online last week in Kansas City Municipal Court, one month before his next scheduled court hearing. Prosecutors recommended Gentry be sentenced to 60 days in jail, with the execution of the sentence suspended, and placed on two years of probation.
The plea now awaits the court’s approval.
Gentry, 51, who at the time of the crash was a fire apparatus operator with the Kansas City Fire Department, no longer works for KCFD.
He also was charged with misdemeanor DWI in Jackson County Circuit Court in connection with the incident. That was his second DWI since he began working for KCFD, according to court records, which show a DWI conviction in Cass County in September 2010.
He pleaded guilty to the latest DWI charge on Dec. 9 and received a suspended imposition of sentence and two years’ probation. He also was ordered to complete a Substance Abuse Traffic Offender Program and attend a Victim Impact Panel.
Gentry’s case is among a series of examples of Kansas City firefighters with multiple DWIs, some of which have been charged as felonies.
Gentry’s attorney, Laura O’Sullivan, said in an email to The Star that “we have no comment.”
Battalion Chief Michael Hopkins, a fire department spokesman, told The Star in March that Gentry resigned from KCFD on Nov. 17, 2024 — four months after the crash.
Information obtained in response to a Missouri Sunshine Law request showed Gentry had been with KCFD for nearly 20 years, with an annual salary of $102,290 at the time he left.
Crash caused house to ‘shake and move’
The Kansas City Police Department report shows that officers were sent to the 900 block of West Red Bridge Road in south Kansas City at 2:34 p.m. on July 10, 2024, “in response to a vehicle that had crashed into a house.”
A 2005 Chevy Silverado pickup had veered off Red Bridge Road just east of the Kansas- Missouri state line and slammed into the residence.
The homeowner was inside the house at the time of the crash, the police report said. She told an officer that “she was sitting in her living room when, in a sudden and unexpected moment, she heard a very loud crash sound, and her house began to shake and move.
“(She) then realized a black truck had crashed into her house.”
The crash caused “extensive damage” to the house and front-end damage to the pickup, the officer wrote in the report.
A witness told the officer that the pickup “was traveling at a high rate of speed, swerved to the left, and struck the house,” the report said.
“As he approached the vehicle, he observed the driver to be intoxicated and had a strong alcohol smell on his person.”
The officer could not take a statement from the driver, the report said, because he had been transported to a hospital by the Kansas City Fire Department prior to the officer’s arrival.
Another officer who went to the hospital to determine the extent of the driver’s injuries said he “had severe injuries to his face, head, and neck and (he) could not get a statement from the driver due to his injuries,” according to the report.
Police later obtained Gentry’s medical records through a subpoena and found that he had a blood alcohol concentration of .319%, according to the probable cause statement supporting the DWI charge. The legal limit for driving a motor vehicle is .08%.
Gentry was charged in municipal court on Oct. 15, 2024, with operating a motor vehicle in a careless and imprudent manner. The DWI case was filed 5 ½ months later in Jackson County Circuit Court.
Gentry pleaded not guilty to the careless driving charge on Aug. 18, 2025. The case had been repeatedly continued, and the next hearing was scheduled for June 8.
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