‘A deadly disease’: Kansas City clergy, anti-violence activists call for killings to stop
As Kansas City is on track for the most violent year in its history, area faith and anti-violence leaders gathered Friday for a prayer vigil and called for the bloodshed to end.
Prayers and gospel songs rang out through loudspeakers on Friday evening in the parking lot of the Greater Metropolitan Church of Christ at 37th Street and Prospect Avenue. Area clergy also read aloud the names of the Kansas City homicide victims of 2023.
The event came at the close of a daylong call to action led by Kansas City’s Ad Hoc Group Against Crime. Area radio station KPRS on 103.3 FM, known to listeners as 103 Hot Jamz!, partnered with Ad Hoc for a 12-hour broadcast over the air featuring community leaders and those impacted by violent crime.
“We’re crying out (to God),” Bishop Frank Douglas, Ad Hoc’s community program coordinator, told The Star on Friday.
“We’re just hoping that we can just help calmer heads prevail,” he added.
Roughly three dozen attended the community event on Friday, including other community activists and Police Chief Stacey Graves. Speaking to the crowd, Damon Daniel, president of Kansas City’s Ad Hoc Group Against Crime, called violence “a disease.”
“It’s a deadly disease,” Daniel said. “It’s one that spreads. It’s a learned behavior. And if it can be learned, then it can be unlearned.”
The prayers came a few hours after Kansas City police were investigating a fatal shooting about 10 blocks away in the Oak Park neighborhood.
A man was fatally shot around 1 p.m. near 43rd Street and College Avenue, marking the 100th homicide in Kansas City so far in 2023, according to data maintained by The Star. The killing keeps the city on pace with 2020, the year when Kansas City saw its most violent year in history with 182 homicides.
Daniel, of Ad Hoc, said he was thankful for the showing of community support and the opportunity to share the anti-violence message across the radio airwaves Friday.
“Part of what we’ve got to do as a community is to remind the community that life is sacred and to remind the community that there are choices other than picking up guns,” Daniel said, adding:
“I am in continued prayer for hearts and minds to be turned. And for people to speak up, and share what they know, so these homicides can be solved.”
