Nearly all Operation LeGend agents left Kansas City — but it’s not over, officials say
Nearly all of the more than 200 agents and investigators involved in Operation LeGend, the federal crime-fighting initiative, have left Kansas City, a federal official said Wednesday.
The agents part of the surge of federal resources to Kansas City have returned to their home districts, said Don Ledford, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri.
“There may be one or two agents around, tying up loose ends on investigation or something like that, but generally ... all of the federal agents” in Kansas City as part of the operation have left the region, Ledford said.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office, Mayor Quinton Lucas and Police Chief Rick Smith will talk about the future of the operation Monday during a news conference. Asked if the operation is over, Ledford responded: “I would not say LeGend is over in Kansas City.”
From the beginning, officials have said the operation would be a short-term one, Ledford told The Star.
“It’s not sustainable to keep all of those agents in Kansas City permanently,” he said, “and that was never the intent.”
In a statement, U.S. Attorney Tim Garrison said while the agents have left, “the lessons learned and the strategies implemented under Operation LeGend remain, even as this community continues the multi-faceted work of reducing violent crime.”
Mayor Quinton Lucas said creating a safer community not only requires getting killers off the streets but also other elements: “prevention, intervention and clearance.”
“My view is very simply that so long as we still have babies being murdered in our streets and we approach record homicide numbers, we have far, far more work to do,” Lucas said in a statement.
Sgt. Jacob Becchina, a spokesman for the Kansas City Police Department, referred questions about the operation to the the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The operation, meant to curb violent crime in Kansas City, was named after 4-year-old LeGend Taliferro, who was shot and killed while sleeping in his bedroom this summer. It was expanded to eight other cities, including St. Louis, Memphis and Detroit.
The White House referred questions to the Department of Justice, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Officials thought about holding an announcement to talk about the agents leaving Kansas City, among other things, but Garrison was in Washington, D.C., for a conference, Ledford said. KCUR first reported the news of the agents leaving.
The news came two days after another child, 1-year-old Tyron Payton, was killed in a shooting that also wounded his parents.
Kansas City remains on pace for its deadliest year on record. As of Wednesday, 148 people have been killed in the city, according to data kept by The Star. When counting four fatal police shootings, the bloodiest year yet was 2017, with 155 killings.
Speaking earlier this week in Milwaukee, Attorney General William Barr said more than 3,500 arrests have been made across the U.S. since the operation began in July. That includes about 200 for homicides, he said.
As of Tuesday, the operation has led to federal charges against 147 people in Kansas City, according to the Justice Department.
That does not include local charges for homicides. As of earlier this month, at least 33 homicide suspects in the Kansas City region had been arrested as part of the operation, but it was unclear how many had been charged.
McClatchy’s Michael Wilner contributed to this report.
This story was originally published September 23, 2020 at 2:54 PM.
