Lives ‘gone too soon,’ KC mayor says of deadliest year as city wakes to another killing
After Kansas City broke its all-time homicide record, Mayor Quinton Lucas said he was heartbroken and called for change to reverse the uptick in killings, as other cities have done.
“Saving young lives, Black lives and all lives has to be a central goal of what we do each day as a city,” Lucas said.
Lucas released a statement about the grim milestone Wednesday after a woman told officers she found the body of a shooting victim in a “pretty dark, secluded alleyway” near East 66th Street and The Paseo, according to police.
The killing broke the single-year record for homicides in Kansas City, according to Kansas City Police Department data, which does not include fatal police shootings.
The Star, however, includes that data and reported that Kansas City broke its record for homicides Thursday when two people were killed in separate shootings. The body found Wednesday marked the 159th homicide victim, according to The Star’s data.
Before Thursday, the homicide record was previously set in 2017, when 155 people were killed, according to data kept by The Star, which includes four fatal police shootings.
Prior to that, the record came in 1993 with 153 killings. At that time, the official homicide total included fatal police shootings.
In his statement, Lucas pointed to one of the city’s “sobering” statistics: since 1984, nearly 4,000 Kansas Citians have been killed. Lucas, who is 36, said Kansas City has seen 100 homicides or more during all but seven years in his lifetime.
“All gone too soon,” he said. “Too many of our fathers, brothers, mothers and sisters have had their lives cut short due to violence.”
The mayor noted that other cities, such as Omaha, Nebraska, and Richmond, Virginia, have seen declines in killings in recent decades. The homicide rate in New York City, he said, has dropped by more than 80% since 1990.
Change in Kansas City, Lucas said, “can and must be made.”
“Each person we’ve lost in 2020 was special,” he said, “and my heart goes out to their families, friends and all in our community touched by the pain.”
In an effort to prevent shootings and build stronger community ties, city officials in September announced an initiative called Reform Project KC, which will focus on prevention, intervention, clearance and administrative reforms.
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.
This story was originally published October 21, 2020 at 3:56 PM.
