Jackson County prosecutor announces neighborhood cleanup event

Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker has announced she will host a neighborhood cleanup event at noon Wednesday at 23rd Street and Denver Avenue in Kansas City.

The event, sponsored by Jackson County Combat, is meant to help reduce urban blight in the 2300 block of Denver Avenue and reduce crime in the city. Organizers will gather in the parking lot of nearby Freedom Temple Ministries to set up the day’s activities.

Volunteers will clean up overgrown lots and other refuse on the block, which is a focus of efforts funded by a federal grant the prosecutor’s office recently won to fight violent crime in the Kansas City Police Department’s East Patrol area. The effort will address abandoned buildings, vacant lots and other blight on that block.

The two-year federal grant will also enable geographic prosecution, which means allowing one assistant prosecutor to handle a case from the first report through the trial, as well as adding enhanced victim support and other community efforts.

The Kansas City Police Department is coordinating with the prosecutor’s office on another grant targeting the same areas in East Patrol.