‘The killing needs to stop’: Kansas City teens discuss impact of violence during panel
Eighteen-year-old Marcelles Heart said he hears gunshots almost every night near his house in Kansas City.
It’s a sound the senior at Northeast High School has gotten used to in the nearly two years he’s lived in Kansas City. And he knows he’s not the only young person in the city exposed to violence.
“That is not something that they should be desensitized and used to,” Heart said Wednesday at panel made up of area teenagers held at Artstech in downtown KC. “Just the sound of gun fire is not something that our children need to know.”
The forum included about a dozen teenagers who discussed how violence impacts youth and what steps can be taken to address the problem.
The conversation came a few weeks after Manuel Guzman, 14, was fatally stabbed at Northeast Middle School. Another 14-year-old student has been charged in his death.
Across the Kansas City metro area, 77 people have been killed this year, according to data tracked by The Star. Of that total, 18 of the victims were ages 24 and younger.
A new study from The New England Journal of Medicine found firearm injuries are now the most common cause of death for people ages 1 to 24 in the U.S., surpassing motor vehicle crashes.
Emeil Humphrey, a 15-year-old at DeLaSalle Education Center, said part of the problem with violence that young people face is access to guns.
“Where are these little kids getting guns from?” Humphrey asked. “The killing needs to stop.”
Tatyiana Johnney, a student at Paseo Academy, wants to bring attention to the violence women and girls in Kansas City face. The 15-year-old said that in the two blocks she walks from her bus stop to her house, she’s been followed.
“That’s really, really scary, as a woman, no matter how you dress, no matter what age you are,” Johnney said.
Several members of the panel also talked about the distrust they have with the Kansas City Police Department. A few speakers said they believe police officers discriminate against Black people in the metro area.
Earlier this year, The Star reported on police data showing officers in Kansas City use a disproportionate amount of violence on people of color: In a city that is 28% Black, more than 57% of the department’s use of force incidents from 2019 to July 2021 were against Black people.
And earlier this month, The Star published a year-long investigation that showed racism within the Kansas City Police Department does not spare its own members, driving many Black officers to leave the department.
Heart, however, disagreed with some of the statements. He believes police have been “demonized in society.”
“The fact that people feel that way and cannot trust police is also a reason people will result to violence,” he said. “They’ll think, ‘The police can’t help me, I have to do it myself. I can’t rely on anybody else.”