Kansas City leaders call for safer streets while scolding Eastside businesses

After a weekend where Kansas City had several shootings, local elected officials and community leaders stood outside a BP gas station in the Eastside, pleading for an end to gun violence and demonizing local businesses that allow loitering.

Local leaders organized a news conference at East 35th Street and Prospect Avenue, where, afterward, community leaders confronted management of the gas station’s convenience store and Big D’s Liquor store, which is catty-corner to the gas station, and prone to loitering, which leads to drug use and violence, leaders said.

On the morning of June 14, four people were shot at the gas station, including Monique Smith, who died from her injuries at a local hospital shortly after. A memorial for Smith and the other victims is displayed on the ground across from the gas station.

“When you have a mother of four sitting over there, when there’s shots fired across the street,” Pat Clarke, president of the Oak Park Neighborhood Association, said, “At what point are we gonna say ‘We don’t want this no more?’”

“The community has had enough of these repeated incidents again and again,” Mayor Quinton Lucas said at the conference. “What we are all saying is not just enough, but that we are committed to taking action in every area that we can, and importantly, we are taking that action together.”

The past weekend was remarkably violent in Kansas City.

There were five fatal shootings over the weekend, including in the Historic 18th and Vine district after Kansas City’s annual Heritage Festival ended, which celebrated Juneteenth. Kansas City has had 81 homicides in 2025, according to data collected by The Star, which includes police shootings.

Jackson County Prosecutor Melesa Johnson was emotional and shed tears when addressing the violence that has long plagued the Eastside neighborhoods where she resides. Johnson said she heard the gunshots from the shooting on June 14 from her bedroom.

“These tears are not a sign of weakness. They’re a sign of frustration,” Johnson said.

The prosecutor, who has been in her position since January, emphasized that businesses that do not cooperate with law enforcement and work to limit loiterers and crime will face harsh penalties.

“To the businesses that continue to turn a blind eye to our everyday experience: Stop taking our dollars if you’re not going to invest in our safety,” Johnson said. “We’ve had enough. And when we have enough, that means that we have to deploy actual tools to help the situation, and that is exactly what the Jackson County prosecutor’s office is doing.”

‘Everybody has a gun’

Clarke, who wore a yellow shirt that displayed ‘Ghetto or Goldmine’ with a list of businesses around it, led a crowd of community organizers and children into the BP’s convenience store and questioned the store clerk about why he hadn’t hired security or worked with local leaders to remedy the issues.

The Missouri secretary of state’s office lists AMPK Fueling Inc. as the owner of the property, with Arfan Paroya listed as president and secretary. Store clerk Nadeem Qureshi told Clark that hiring Kansas City police for security would cost too much, Clark said.

“You need to take personal responsibility for cleaning up the mess in your parking lot,” Urban League President & CEO Gwendolyn Grant told Qureshi during the interaction.

Qureshi told Clarke and Grant that he consistently calls the police when he sees prostitution, drug dealing and weapons near the store.

“[I] cannot go outside and talk to anybody because everybody has a gun,” Qureshi said.

The crowd continued to Big D’s Liquor, where Clarke spoke on the phone with a manager, telling him that as many as 40 people at a time gather outside of the store, drinking alcohol and using drugs. The manager told him private security would be in the area by July.

Amid the confrontations and calling out of businesses, community leaders and elected officials urged for peace in the community and encouraged Kansas City residents that they are working to make the streets amicable.

“Forget about the World Cup. I’m worried about tomorrow,” Lucas said. “We will make sure that we are safe on Prospect today, tomorrow, and everything.”

“The only way for sustainable reduction in violent crime is this right here... Everything coming together and actually making changes in our community,” police Chief Stacy Graves said at the news conference. “I can’t stress enough the need for conflict resolution, for us to resolve any kind of problems that we have.”

This story was originally published June 23, 2025 at 10:12 PM.