After chaos, Lee’s Summit says farewell to beloved Downtown Days: ‘It was scary’
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Police responded to reports of fights, assaults and property damage at Downtown Days.
- Police threatened Tasers and pepper balls and chased a youth, recovering a gun.
- Downtown Lee’s Summit Main Street board decided to end the longtime Downtown Days.
Youths wreaked havoc on Lee’s Summit’s Downtown Days on Saturday evening, and law enforcement eventually scattered attendees with threats of Tasers and pepper balls.
The beloved community festival had drawn to a dour conclusion, after reports of fights and other mayhem.
The following day, Seth Allen, who owns the Third Street bar Libations and Company, which sat at the heart of the festival, penned a thoughtful Facebook post about the situation that has since been widely shared and commented on.
He mused that perhaps discussions about police, crowd management and logistics, while important, don’t get at the root issues behind the disruptions the event has seen over the last few years.
“We hear terms like ‘bad kids,’ ‘bad parenting,’ or ‘kids these days,’” he wrote. “These explanations provide emotional satisfaction, but they offer little practical value. If those explanations were sufficient, the problem would already be solved. Instead, we find ourselves having the same conversation year after year. Perhaps that is because we are asking questions designed to assign blame rather than discover truth.”
Allen told The Star Tuesday that he was sad to see the announcement that Downtown Lee’s Summit Main Street would not bring the festival back but said he understood the decision.
“We as a downtown community and we as a city have spent years discussing how to control this behavior, but I think it’s time we start asking what’s creating it,” he said.
“The whole, ‘parenting, it’s a parenting problem,’ feels like very thinly veiled racism,” he said. “Parenting may be part of the discussion, but a problem that repeats itself year after year across numerous families and backgrounds and in different regions of the country can’t be explained by a single factor like bad parenting,” he said. “It may be part of the equation, but it’s certainly not the end-all be-all.”
‘It was scary down here’
On Saturday evening, Lee’s Summit police responded to reports of fights, assaults, property damage and large groups of youths that wouldn’t disperse.
In one incident, a child unleashed bear spray in a crowd, and in another, officers recovered a gun after chasing another youth, police said. Videos showed youths running through the event and scuffling with police before officers shooed attendees away.
Angie Moore, a bartender at The Do Drop Inn, a bar on Main Street, was working over the weekend and watched groups of kids running past the business several times, saw youths jumping on top of a car and spotted some who made it to the rooftop of a downtown building. She heard about other incidents through the bartending community.
“It was scary down here,” she said. “I was honestly terrified. My anxiety was through the roof. We locked the doors several different times. They didn’t thankfully come into our bar, but I do know that they came into other bars. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“It’s bad,” she said of the festival’s end, “but I’d rather us not have an event like that, if something like that’s gonna go down.”
Matt Shea, a Lee’s Summit resident, said he didn’t blame festival organizers for scrapping the event.
“They try to keep Lee’s Summit a family kind of place, and that kind of stuff doesn’t happen here — hasn’t in the past,” he said. “I don’t blame them.”
Kayla Mayfield, who works at Baby Bump Imaging and Boutique on Third Street, said the shop had pushed to open in time for Downtown Days.
“We hurried up and opened so that we could be a part of it, and that was our first experience,” she said. “A little disappointed.”
“Just sad that it’s all happening and that everybody else was punished for some young kids trying to cause issues,” she said. “Hopefully, they’ll figure out another way to do something, or keep it more secure.”
Sandy Sommer, who lives near downtown, said she had attended the event for years. This year, though, she didn’t. She had a feeling, she said.
“I don’t understand, no respect for people or life or anything anybody has,” she said. “Everybody’s trying to share and have a good time.”
Reaction from Lee’s Summit mayor
In a statement on Wednesday, Mayor Beto Lopez said Downtown Days had been a “central part of our city’s story” and had played an important role in revitalizing the downtown and bringing the community together.
“The decision to end the event was made solely by the Board of Directors of Downtown Lee’s Summit,” he said. “While the City was not involved, we fully respect their decision and recognize the significance and positive impact Downtown Days has had on our community.”
“The safety of our residents, businesses, visitors, and youth must always remain the top priority,” Lopez said. “I want to thank the Board for its decades of leadership and dedication in making Downtown Days a cherished community tradition.”
