Mayor calls for change, expresses grief after fatal shooting of popular KC chef Shaun Brady
Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said he was heartbroken to learn of the fatal shooting of local chef Shaun Brady in the Brookside neighborhood Wednesday, while acknowledging concerns business owners have raised about crime in the area.
“For months, community members have cried out for a response from institutions, including our police, our electeds, our county justice apparatus, and all with some role in making things better, explaining that a failure to address would lead to more violent criminal activity,” Lucas said in a social media post early Thursday morning, pointing to the worry business owners in Brookside, Waldo and other areas of the city have raised. “You have heard from us many reasons, but none are sufficient.”
Brady, 44, was one of the proprietors of Brady & Fox, at the intersection of East 63rd Street and Rockhill Road in Brookside, and a popular chef known for his contributions to the local Irish community.
Sgt. Phil DiMartino, a spokesperson for the Kansas City Police Department, said Brady was taking out trash Wednesday evening when he had an “interaction” with a group that was near a vehicle and was shot. Police said Thursday morning that within an hour of the shooting, two teenage boys were taken into custody and a vehicle was recovered in Midtown.
Residents and business owners have called for action in the Waldo and Brookside neighborhoods in recent weeks, responding to what they’ve said is an upswing in crime in the area.
In his statement responding to the shooting, Lucas said the city needed to “immediately” expand its detention capacity and said city officials had identified space for holding people at the police department’s downtown headquarters. He said to expect “ordinance activity” on that space shortly.
While noting police staffing “challenges,” he also said the department needed to work to increase patrols in areas where crime was an ongoing issue, and said police needed to return to a policy of arresting for all law and ordinance violations, “even if only to intervene in criminal activity, to show some certainty and swiftness of consequences.”
“While prosecutors and the courts will be the arbiters of the latter severity of consequences, we must ensure all, including our teenage suspects and their peers, know there are consequences for criminal behavior where probable cause supports an arrest,” Lucas said.
Lucas said he had previously met with Brady, laughed with him and was inspired by the work he was doing in Kansas City.
“I grieve for and express my sincerest condolences to his family and all who knew him,” Lucas said in his post.
