KC mayor candidate’s wife robbed in Ward Parkway home

It’s been an eventful week for Crossroads business owner Phil Glynn.

On Thursday, Glynn announced he was running for mayor of Kansas City in the 2019 election.

Four days earlier, his wife, Elizabeth Glynn, tried to assist a teenager who came to their Ward Parkway home Sunday evening asking for help. The teen then displayed a gun and took her cell phone and SUV.

“Yes, it was a scary experience,” Phil Glynn told The Star on Saturday. “She is a very brave woman and had great composure and presence of mind. I’m relieved she handled it as well as she did, and everyone is safe.”

Glynn said he was away in Tulsa, Okla., on a business trip last Sunday evening. His wife and three children were at home in the 5700 block of Ward Parkway when a young teenager came to the house and asked to use a phone to call his home.

There was no answer on that phone call, Glynn said, and the teenager asked for a ride home. Glynn said the teen told his wife that he was 13, and she described him as looking very young.

Glynn said his wife sent their children to a neighbor’s house and offered the teen a ride home. Once the kids were out of the house, the teen showed a handgun. Glynn said the teen took his wife’s cell phone and SUV.

Glynn said the vehicle has been located but is still being processed as part of the police investigation. He said he had no information on the search for a suspect.

The Glynns own Travois, a 50-employee firm that finances and supports housing and economic development projects in American Indian communities.

He announced his mayoral candidacy in a video on Thursday in which he expressed his excitement for the city’s future, but also noted that many in the city feel left behind. He joined a field of mayoral candidates that already includes several City Council members.

On Saturday, Glynn said the experience with a home robbery “doesn’t cause me to come up with any quick answers. If anything, it will help me to ask better questions.”

“My reaction is, we as a whole community have to be asking, how have we created a situation in which a young person does this?” Glynn said. “How did we get here?”

He said he wants to work hard to create a city “where all our young people can be making positive contributions.”