AG Barr in Kansas City: Officials say 18 local homicide arrests made in Operation LeGend
U.S. Attorney General William Barr announced Wednesday in Kansas City that almost 1,500 arrests have been made as part of Operation LeGend across the country, including suspects in 90 homicides.
“Like LeGend’s murderer,” Barr said of the allegations against the Kansas City man accused of killing 4-year-old LeGend Taliferro, whom the operation is named after.
Speaking before Barr at the downtown federal courthouse, Tim Garrison, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri, said local clearance rates have increased since the operation began.
Locally, the operation has led to the arrest of 18 homicide suspects and the seizure of 78 firearms, officials said. Five of the 18 homicide arrests have led to charges, Garrison said.
“Operation LeGend is working,” he said. “There is much to be done, but to use the parlance of our day, we are flattening the curve.”
In an email after the news conference, Don Ledford, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Kansas City, clarified that seven defendants have been charged in six local homicides.
In June, Kansas City had more than three homicides every four days, Garrison said. Since Operation LeGend was announced July 8, that rate has been “reduced to fewer than three killings every five days,” he said.
The rate at which homicides are solved and referred for charges has increased from 34% to 45% since June 1, Garrison said.
Kansas City Police Chief Rick Smith said he met with Barr before the news conference. He told Barr police would not have solved some of their murder cases as quickly as they had without the federal help.
“This is absolutely making a difference,” Smith said.
Most of the people arrested through the operation across the U.S. have been charged in state courts. About 217 have been charged with federal crimes, including more than 100 for gun crimes, officials said.
In a news release, the Department of Justice said the operation has resulted in 57 federal charges in the Kansas City metro.
Twenty of the charges were for the defendant being a felon in possession of a firearm and 16 were for drug trafficking. Three were charged with armed robbery. One was charged with carjacking and another was charged with arson.
The operation, launched last month to combat violence in Kansas City, is named after LeGend, who was fatally shot in June as he slept in an apartment. Prosecutors have since charged Ryson Ellis, 22, of Kansas City, in his killing.
Barr, the nation’s top law enforcement official, spoke alongside Smith; FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich; Stephen McAllister, U.S. attorney for the District of Kansas; and other U.S. district attorneys from other states, including Illinois, New Mexico, Michigan and Indiana. TV screens behind them displayed images of guns seized by law enforcement.
LeGend’s mother, Charron Powell, also stood among the officials. She wore a red and blue mask displaying white words that read: “Living LeGend.” When she spoke, Powell called on anyone with information in unsolved killings to come forward.
“No, we don’t have our son back,” she said. “But at the same time, we ... have a light weight lifted off of us.”
Asked on Twitter why he wasn’t among the officials, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas responded: “I wasn’t invited.”
In a Tuesday interview with The Star, Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said she was appreciative of any work federal agents do to help solve local homicides. But she said the operation is “not a long-term solution.”
“If they’re solved by federal agents assisting, that’s great,” Baker said. “I just haven’t seen that yet.”
In a statement after Barr’s visit Wednesday, Missouri Democratic Party spokesperson Andrew Storey said Missourians did not need federal agents deployed on their streets.
“We need tests, we need personal protective equipment,” Storey said, “and we need a president with the capacity to lead us through the worst crisis our nation has faced in a generation.”
As of Wednesday, 127 people have been slain in homicides this year in Kansas City, according to data maintained by The Star, which includes police shootings. There had been 93 killings by this time last year, which ended with 153 homicides.
Kansas City’s deadliest year was 2017, when 155 people were killed, according to The Star’s data. There had been 98 homicides reported by this time that year.
Non-fatal shootings are also up in Kansas City. As of Sunday, 408 people have been shot and survived this year. That’s compared to 328 by that time last year, which ended with 491 living victims, according to police data.
Since its creation in Kansas City, the operation has been expanded to other cities seeing an uptick in violence. That includes St. Louis, Memphis, Chicago, Albuquerque, Detroit and Milwaukee.
The operation has sent more than 1,000 additional agents to work with police in those cities, Barr said. That includes an additional 185 agents in Kansas City, he said.
Among the arrests across the country, 61 people have been federally charged in Chicago, 32 in Cleveland, 25 in St. Louis, 22 in Detroit, 16 in Albuquerque, 11 in Milwaukee and seven in Memphis, according to the Justice Department.
Barr acknowledged crime is significantly down in the U.S. compared to the early 1990s. But he said 2020 could end up being a “bad year” for violent crime, possibly, in part, from pent up aggression prompted by stay-at-home orders.
At a White House event last month, Barr falsely claimed that 200 arrests had already been made by federal agents in Kansas City alone as part of the operation. Speaking before the House Judiciary Committee, he said he misspoke.
Federal prosecutors in Kansas City then said the 200 arrests had been made locally as part of Operation Relentless Pursuit, an initiative announced in December that combined federal, state and local resources.
At a briefing Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said President Donald Trump wants “peace in our streets” and “law and order restored.”
“Operation LeGend is a very good example of cooperation in action,” McEnany said, “which is a sharp contrast to those who merely express empty sentiments, or worse, hold blatant disregard for the unacceptable violence in our cities, of which many children have fallen victim.”
Then Wednesday evening, Trump echoed the announcement and said prosecutions “will follow, and they’ll be a very long time in prison for what they’ve done to these cities.”
The Star’s Katie Moore and McClatchy’s Michael Wilner contributed to this report.
This story was originally published August 19, 2020 at 11:30 AM.
