613 guns stolen from vehicles in Kansas City this year, nearly 100 in Westport alone
This year on average, about two guns were stolen each day from vehicles in Kansas City.
So far this year, 613 guns have been stolen from vehicles between Jan. 1 and Nov. 30. During the same time frame last year, 498 firearms were stolen from vehicles in Kansas City.
The number of firearms stolen from the Westport area alone has been “staggering,” Capt. Sean Hutcheson, of the Kansas City Police Department, said during Tuesday’s Board of Police Commissioners meeting.
“One of the drivers of our violence in the city is easy access to guns,” said Hutcheson, who said that this year saw a 19% increase in thefts over last year.
While he didn’t point to a specific reason for the increase, Hutcheson said that relaxed gun laws in Missouri over the past two decades have resulted in more people carrying guns in their vehicles.
And, he said, Missouri is one of 39 states that doesn’t mandate that stolen guns be reported. So the total number of thefts in the city is likely higher.
“This is probably one of our greatest challenges in the city by far,” Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said in response to the increase.
In the past year, the police department has focused on four “hot spots” where the highest concentration of thefts occur. They are all entertainment districts: Westport, Power & Light, the Crossroads and 18th and Vine.
Over the summer, when gun thefts increased at an alarming rate, Kansas City police put out a news release saying that dozens of firearms had been reported stolen in a string of thefts from vehicles near Kansas City’s entertainment districts, mainly Westport.
For the most part, the summer uptick has sustained itself through the fall.
Hutcheson said video from numerous thefts shows instances where one person will pop windows out of cars and someone will follow behind, quickly checking beneath seats and glove box.
“That’s it,” he said. “These guns are unsecured in these vehicles.”
When a gun is reported stolen, police go to the area to process the scene and look for video footage, Hutcheson said, “because we know it’s a problem, and we know what these guns are being used for.”
In July 2021, he said a firearm recovered in a Raymore homicide was found to have been stolen earlier from the 18th and Vine Jazz District, for example.
But Westport overwhelmingly accounts for the most firearm thefts this year, with 96. By comparison, 9 guns have been stolen from vehicles at Arrowhead Stadium’s parking lot this year.
So far, police have made three arrests for possession of a stolen firearm at the state level, including one juvenile. Their cases are pending with no formal charges at this point. At the federal level, four people have been arrested and are awaiting trial, Hutcheson said.
St. Louis has seen a similar uptick in gun thefts from vehicles, especially from their downtown entertainment districts, Hutcheson said. He said Kansas City police plan to reach out to St. Louis police as well as other large cities to talk about possible solutions, including those at the legislative level.
In the meantime, he said, KCPD will “continue increased activity in entertainment districts,” many of which have some on and off-duty police presence, but also lack consistent security measures across privately owned parking lots where lighting and surveillance video isn’t always the best.
Lucas said from a policy perspective, he recommends City Council think about staggered closing times at more establishments in Westport, adding that he believes having everyone feed out at 3 a.m. as bars close contributes to the criminal activity and “lawlessness” there.
He also said the city needs to consider requiring better lighting in areas such as parking lots, adding that this is an easier solution than battling the legislature on the Second Amendment.
While Westport deploys metal detectors to keep guns out of the bars in the entertainment district during busier months and weekends, plenty of firearms are still traveling to the area.
Hutcheson and Lucas again discouraged people from leaving guns in their car without locking them up.
“It’s exceedingly unhelpful for our community and it’s leading to crimes in Kansas City and points beyond,” Lucas said.
