Lawrence grapples with increased violence that residents believe is from out-of-towners

It takes barely half an hour.

Anyone in this East Topeka neighborhood surrounding Pastor Tracy Smith’s church can load into a car, jump on Interstate 70 and escape to downtown Lawrence, seemingly in minutes.

She knows what fun there is in Lawrence, the college town. She and her husband used to live there. A son of hers was a Jayhawk.

“I love Lawrence,” she says.

She also sees up close here in Topeka’s Ripley Park neighborhood the young men and teenagers whom some Lawrence residents fear.

She sees many of them with guns. “They’re readily available,” she said. “They carry them for protection or retaliation. You put a gun in someone’s hands, and you get angry — every action has a reaction.”

On Oct. 1 some 100 people out on Massachusetts Street after midnight scattered in terror when an altercation suddenly let loose with gunfire. Three suspects from Topeka eventually were arrested for violence connected to the killing of two victims from Topeka and the killing of a 22-year-old woman from Shawnee. Two more people were wounded.

It rubbed a raw wound — the belief that Lawrence has been importing crime from Topeka — and this was the worst nightmare.

The “recipe for violence,” said Lawrence resident Bret King, 22, is coming from out of town and lacing Lawrence’s party atmosphere with “casual firearms.”

Lawrence Police crime investigators aren’t making that correlation with Topeka. The department would need to do a deeper analysis of its violent crime incidents, said Sgt. Amy Rhoads.

Police and Downtown Lawrence Inc. also say that, while a rise in violent crime incidents throughout Lawrence the past two years is a concern, KU’s party town remains a safe environment.

Lawrence crime rates remained just below state averages through 2016 and were well below rates seen in cities like Topeka, Wichita and Kansas City, Kan.

“We firmly believe that downtown Lawrence is a safe place to be,” Rhoads said.

It’s not that the Lawrence residents who walk Massachusetts Street fear they are targets, people interviewed by The Star said. But there is a concern about people from neighboring cities coming to Lawrence and getting into trouble.

“The shooting was indicative of a large problem Lawrence has had for a long time,” said Samantha Bisbee, 27.

“They’re not coming to attack us,” she said. “They’re coming to interact with the people here.”

Lawrence draws crowds — diverse in age and race — that feed an enticing festival atmosphere.

But some inevitably “bring their business with them,” said 21-year-old KU student Mujri Alhajri. “Anything they do wrong in Topeka, they’re going to do in Lawrence.”

“Why,” he asked, “has a 20-year-old got a gun?”

He was referencing the Topeka man charged in the three Oct. 1 killings — 20-year-old Anthony Laron Roberts Jr.

Roberts was visibly shaken when he made his first appearance in a Douglas County courtroom Oct. 25.

As the judge read the charges against him, Roberts gripped each side of the podium with his head hung low. He exhaled heavily and tears squeezed from his eyes.

Keith Rayton of Topeka, a certified nursing assistant who has been organizing youth programs and anti-gang efforts, knows some of the suspects in the shooting and some of the victims.

No one departed for Lawrence that night with dangerous intent, Rayton believes.

Roberts is a father, he said, and so is another suspect, Ahmad Rayton, 22, who is charged with attempted murder.

Ahmad Rayton is a cousin of Keith Rayton, as is one of the men who died — 24-year-old Tre’Mel Dupree Dean.

Keith Rayton and Dean grew up close, playing youth football together in a Lawrence league.

“Tre’Mel was an uplifting person,” Rayton said. “He would always be happy.”

Trips to Lawrence were an escape, Rayton said. An easy drive out of Topeka.

“You go to Lawrence to avoid the problems, to enjoy yourself without the stress of home,” he said. “He was going to have fun. He was going to enjoy the night.”

Guns and violence

Ask Massachusetts Street business owners about their concerns and many will turn their thoughts to gun control.

None wanted to say so publicly, but it weighs over them, each said.

Some of them had opened their doors the Sunday morning after the shootings, especially determined to open without fear. Likewise came many of their customers to share their faith that their town is safe.

They came as police were still investigating the scene. Some of the shop owners had to wipe blood from window sills. Some customers stepped around firefighters hosing down the stained pavement.

“Guns are hard to discuss,” said one business manager who did not want to be identified. “It’s so politicized. But if you don’t have guns, a lot of these things don’t happen.”

Resident Monika Ivy, 35, felt free to speak her mind. She sees the growing tension around safety as a gun control issue that is hamstrung by the nation’s divide.

“It makes me upset as a Lawrence citizen that I do not feel safe,” she said.

The Kansas Bureau of Investigation’s compilation of crime stats tracked a dramatic rise in violent crime for Lawrence from 2015 to 2016. The number of aggravated assaults and murders rose by 63 percent, compared to an 7-percent increase statewide.

But even with the increase, the number of violent crimes was 3.5 per 1,000 people in Lawrence in 2016 compared to 3.7 per 1,000 statewide. Topeka had 5.7 violent crimes per 1,000 people and Kansas City, Kan., 6.3.

Lawrence, Topeka, Wichita, Kansas City, Kan., and Johnson County all have experienced a rise in violent crime, the records show.

“It’s happening across the nation,” said Topeka Police Criminal Investigations Lt. Jennifer Cross. “We’ve had multiple heat-of-the-moment, ongoing arguments” leading to shootings often between people known to each other, she said. Topeka reported 403 aggravated assaults in 2016 compared to 213 for Lawrence. Aggravated assaults are assaults with a weapon, usually a firearm.

The crossover of crime between cities, not just with Lawrence but on down I-70 to Kansas City, Kan., is not a new development, Cross said.

The Oct. 1 shootings, however, were beyond understanding, said Sally Zogry, the executive director of Downtown Lawrence, Inc.

The brokenhearted community was still trying to absorb its meaning when, later that same Sunday, a mass shooting unleashed on a crowd in an outdoor concert in Las Vegas killed 58 people.

Late night television personality Jimmy Kimmel mentioned Lawrence’s shooting while lamenting the Vegas tragedy in an emotional appeal on national TV.

“It’s terrible, but it’s not the norm here,” Zogry said. “We have had issues with people from Topeka. I feel sorry for Topeka and their reputation. (But) most of that violent crime is not homegrown.”

Sue Shea is the director of the Phoenix Gallery in downtown Lawrence and she also lives downtown.

She feels “completely safe,” she said. Lawrence continues to be an “idyllic downtown” for her.

“A tragic event happened, but it doesn’t define our downtown,” she said.

Eyes wide open

Mourners have accumulated a curious collection of memorials on the wall on the corner of 11th Street and Massachusetts near where the three people died — Dupree, Colwin Henderson III and Leah Elizabeth Brown.

There among expected candles sit gardening gloves, a tea bag, a picture of an eye of a tiger, a golf ball, a queen of hearts, dice, an apple — and a handwritten plea:

People who come to this location — How can we communicate?

Tracy Smith would have people consider the work she has been trying to do at her small church — the IYFIC (Increase Your Faith in Christ) Temple of Deliverance.

Passing out backpacks to children. Connecting families to social services. Opening doors for prayer. Trying, usually in vain, to get people to put down their firearms, knowing, she said, “a hungry man is not going to hear you until you feed him.”

For Keith Rayton, the way out is breaking down “the enemy feeling” that festers in too many teenagers and young adults and lights the fuse of violence.

He would call on more efforts like those he’s involved in that put young people coping with trauma together in activities that open opportunities for personal growth and friendships.

In Lawrence, more venues have started using metal detector wands at the door, and police say they have made some strategic changes in how they are patrolling downtown, within the limitations of staffing.

“We want to be welcoming,” Zogry said. “We want people to know we are committed to keeping this a safe place. …This is our community, our gathering space. Everyone’s got their eyes open.”

This story was originally published November 5, 2017 at 7:00 AM with the headline "Lawrence grapples with increased violence that residents believe is from out-of-towners."