KCPD touts effort reducing crime in select areas, but killings are up across the city
The Kansas City Police Department is touting a new crime reduction initiative that it says realized a 24% drop in crime in some of the city’s most violent neighborhoods over the past year.
But across the city as a whole, homicides and nonfatal shootings have increased during the same period.
The new effort is called Risk-Based Policing, and is focused on violent crimes such as homicides, aggravated assaults and robberies in four of the city’s patrol divisions located south of the Missouri River. It was launched a year ago through a partnership with Rutgers University.
A key aspect of the new effort is that it, “focuses on places, not people,” Chief Rick Smith wrote in a blog published Monday. It used geographic information to show where a crime is most likely to occur.
The approach led police to focus resources on certain liquor stores, vacant properties, parks, bus stops and other high-crime areas.
“They may be completely innocuous on their own, but the risk of crime can increase dramatically if many are in the same general vicinity,” Smith wrote.
Under the risk-based policing model, officers checked liquor licenses at businesses that sold alcohol in high-crime areas and shared that information to the city’s regulated industries.
Police also offered recommendations to property owners what they could do to reduce crime by installing better lighting and security cameras, Smith said.
Researchers found that violent street crime dropped 24% overall in the focus areas. There were 165 fewer violent crime victims in the neighborhoods where the risk-based policing model was used over the past year, Smith said.
Central Patrol Division, which spans neighborhoods south of the Missouri River to Brush Creek Boulevard and from Stateline Road to approximately Wabash Avenue, saw the biggest reduction in crime at 43%.
Metro Patrol Division, which includes neighborhoods surrounding Swope Park, Loose Park, Brookside and Waldo areas, had about 9% drop in violent, which was the lowest in the targeted area.
“These findings are statistically significant, meaning we can have confidence the reductions are due to our efforts opposed to random chance,” Smith said. “We obviously still have a lot of work to do and are already planning ways to evolve the strategy and build on these early successes.”
But when the entire city is counted, homicides and nonfatal shootings are both up over the same time period viewed in the study.
From March 15, 2018 to March 14, 2019 - the year before the study - Kansas City recorded 137 homicides.
During the year of the study, from March 15, 2019 to March 14, 2020, the city recorded 162 homicides.
Nonfatal shootings similarly increased, from 444 to 513.
The most recently killing occurred late Sunday when Anna Velazquez, 35, was found fatally shot in an upstairs bedroom inside of a residence in 3700 block of East Seventh Street. Prosecutors charged the woman’s husband, Carlos Velazquez, 34, with second-degree murder in her killing.
Nathan Garrett, president of the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners, said he is encouraged by some of the early results even if the city’s overall numbers are not showing the same trend.
“I’m pleased to see the number has hit 24%, but hard to fully appreciate in the face of our non-fatal shootings and homicides which remain at entirely unacceptable numbers,” Garrett said.
“And I know the Chief feels the same way. That said, the public needs to know that violent crime as a group of offenses is down—that’s important public information and I hope it resonates and contributes to further confidence and buy-in on community engagement. Violent crimes are just that—violent,” he said.
No overtime or grant funding was needed, and no specialized squads were created as part of the new initiative, Smith said.
Two weeks ago, Smith said police have seen a dramatic increase in domestic violence reports since stay-at-home orders were put in place across the metropolitan area.
That prompted Mayor Quinton Lucas to introduce a resolution on Thursday to have acting City Manager Earnest Rouse conduct a study on why the COVID-19 pandemic has caused rise in domestic violence in Kansas City.
Gun violence will be the subject of a new, statewide journalism project The Star is undertaking in Missouri this year in partnership with the national service program Report for America. As part of this project, The Star will seek the community’s help. To contribute, visit Report for America online at reportforamerica.org.
This story was originally published April 28, 2020 at 12:36 PM.
