After 5 shot in Westport, mayor says KC’s approach to violent crime ‘isn’t working’
Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said Kansas City is not doing enough to combat gun violence after a shooting in Westport early Saturday morning left one man dead and four people injured.
“It’s happened too often in Kansas City; we’re waking up on Saturday mornings to too many tragedies,” Lucas said while speaking to reporters.
According to Kansas City police, an off-duty officer saw someone shooting out of a white SUV while traveling on Mill Street near Westport Road just before 1:30 a.m.
The officer, police said, shot his weapon at those involved in the shooting. A person was taken into custody after the SUV, which had bullet holes on it, was located by other officers at 39th and Main streets.
Two men are in critical condition. A woman has non life-threatening injuries and a man is in stable condition, police said in an email.
Westport security officers were also involved in the shooting, police said, though the nature and extent of their involvement is not known. No officers or security guards were injured, police said.
In a statement to The Star, a Westport spokeswoman said the incident started from an altercation inside the Throwback bar.
Once the suspects involved in the altercation left the parking garage, they began shooting out the vehicle’s windows at those involved in the dispute, the statement said.
“Police and security in the area acted quickly and were able to intervene to put an end to this critical incident,” the statement said. “This is an ongoing investigation. We’ll continue to work with police as safety and security are paramount.”
Officer Doaa El-Ashkar, a Kansas City police spokeswoman, later said the preliminary information released by Westport has been confirmed by detectives, “pending further investigation.”
A 21-year-old Northwest Missouri State student in town for a dance competition said she heard at least 10 gunshots while she was walking to an Uber on Mill Street Saturday morning.
Mallory Kissinger said police began running and screaming at people to get down after the shots were fired.
“I ducked behind a food truck and prayed to God to protect me,” Kissinger said.
She said she was crying and hysterical during the shooting, focused entirely on getting out alive.
“I don’t think I’m ever going back to Westport,” she said.
An epidemic
The shooting, Lucas said, showed the extent of violent crime fighting capabilities in Kansas City with the involvement of officers and security guards. However, he said, “there was still someone who was intent on shooting up a crowd of people.”
Lucas said the city is seeking and implementing strategies to solve the problem. He referenced security measures taken in Westport, legislation to take guns away from juveniles and domestic violence offenders, and efforts to prosecute and prevent homicides such as the newly implemented weekly shooting reviews.
Combating violent crime needs to be the biggest priority in the city, he said. And despite resources and efforts going toward addressing the issue, more needs to be done.
“If we had the answer we would certainly be doing it,” Lucas said. “We’ve had a violent crime epidemic in Kansas City for years.
“It’s my job to make sure we fix it.”
Lucas said he is looking to other cities for new strategies.
Violence in Westport
Saturday morning’s shooting is the latest of many violent events in Westport over the last several years.
In April, the district added six security checkpoints following shootings in the bar district in 2018.
There has been at least one shooting in the district since that policy was implemented. That shooting, which was in June, occurred just outside the district after the checkpoints had shut down at 3 a.m.
Mill Street, where the shooting occurred, is not blocked of by Westport security checkpoints and those checkpoints are not active during the winter due to smaller crowd sizes, the district said in a statement to The Star.
The checkpoints will likely restart in April, Westport spokeswoman Stacey McBride said in an email.
“There are no words to express our sadness about an incident like this in our city,” the statement said.
Lucas, however, said he was frustrated by the shooting in a district that appeared to have gotten safer. It is also proof that more needs to be done, he said.
“It shows that what we’re coming up with right now isn’t working,” he said. “Everything is, I guess, a part of what we need to do but at the same time it shows that we’re not safe enough.”
Citywide solutions
Violent crime in the city is not relegated to entertainment districts such as Westport. Lucas pointed to a fatal shooting Friday in a car outside the Kansas City Police Department Central Patrol Division as proof that more needs to be done throughout the city.
“How can you make something safer than being outside a police station?” he asked.
Lucas said that part of the solution may be for police and other officials to engage with those who may become part of violent crime before it happens. He said a key step will be working to clear homicides quickly and prevent retaliatory violence.
“We need to make sure that every district of our city is safe. Right now we’re not able to do that,” he said.
This story was originally published February 29, 2020 at 11:13 AM.
