After 6 killed over weekend, mayor calls reducing violence KC’s ‘existential question’
After six people were killed within a recent 26 hours, marking Kansas City’s deadliest weekend this year, Mayor Quinton Lucas called how the city reduces violence its “existential question.”
“We can’t just sit back every weekend and say, you know, ‘We got six people dead who don’t need to be dead, but we don’t have a real way we’re trying to answer it,’” he said.
The violence that plagued various parts of the city over the weekend ranged from an accidental shooting in the Kansas City Zoo’s parking lot to a suspected domestic violence killing in a Ward Parkway Plaza home. One shooting was a double homicide.
The final killing of the weekend marked the 127th homicide this year in Kansas City, putting the city on pace to see a record number of slayings, according to data maintained by The Star, which includes police shootings.
There had been 90 homicides by this time last year, which ended with 153.
In a call with The Star, Lucas said he plans to announce this month an initiative that marshals resources that already exist in the city to combat violence. He said he intends to work with the police, the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office and other stakeholders from government and nonprofit sectors to “try to at least give it a go on things like enhanced support for intervention-type resources.”
“How do we make it so people in the middle of resolving disputes with firearms don’t look to relate?” he asked. “That is huge in Kansas City, and that’s going to be key for us.”
Lucas said he would like to see conflict resolution programs in Kansas City schools expanded. He also pointed to “creative” crime-fighting strategies in Oakland, California, where there are more hands-on interactions with those “engaged in the streets.”
Last week, Lucas met with a group of men, all of whom have lost friends to murder. Some, he said, had been incarcerated or shot.
“You need the help of more groups like that,” he said.
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 and sponsored in part by Missouri Foundation for Health. As part of this project, The Star will seek the community’s help.
To contribute, visit Report for America online at reportforamerica.org.
