Neighbor of Grayson O’Connor shares interactions with him & his mother

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - KCTV5 is learning more about the environment five-year-old Grayson O’Connor was living in before his death. One neighbor shared her interactions with the five-year-old and his mother.

Police say Grayson fell from a downtown apartment last week. KCTV5 Investigation team has obtained records showing that officers were called to their apartment at least eight times over the past six years.

After reviewing those records, six of those calls were for disturbances and the other two were for welfare checks. The calls do not include dates that a neighbor says police were called nor the call on the day Grayson’s body was found.

Derrae Davis lives on the 17th floor, the same floor Grayson and his mother lived on. Davis said she witnessed several interactions with Grayson’s mother and the young boy, which led her to report her to building management and even compelled her to record some of those incidents.

In the hallways and by the elevator, Davis said she always enjoyed interacting with Grayson as he ed by with his mom.

“He was a happy friendly kid,” Davis recalled. “He always wanted to share his knowledge because he was a child, so he was learning his numbers, his name, and what floor he lived on.”

But ever since moving to the top floor, Davis says she noticed a disturbing change with Grayson’s mother.

Over the past three years, Davis watched police show up at their apartment on several occasions. She believes that was due to noise complaints and causing commotion on the floor.

“Just the excessive verbal abuse of her yelling and cussing was just so unnecessary,” Davis expressed. “A simple ‘let’s walk down to the trash shoot’ was a whole big ordeal.”

Davis says she reported these incidents to the building manager herself. However, according to her, nothing changed.

Davis recorded a video of an incident that occurred inside the mother’s apartment and said she witnessed several other incidents in the hallway and elevator.

“She was just always fussing at him and it would be so annoying as somebody just standing there,” Davis continued. “Wondering why are you yelling at him he’s literally not doing anything but to her, it was so annoying to have a toddler.”

Police have not released the identity of Grayson’s mom because she is not facing any charges at this time. However, police have declared her a person of interest in Grayson’s death, which they have classified as suspicious.

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