After deadliest year, here’s how many homicides Kansas City has recorded so far in 2024
The number of homicides in Kansas City got off to a slow start in 2024 . . . that is, until this past week and a half.
Kansas City has seen 10 people killed in about as many days, according to data tracked by The Star. The number of people killed in homicides in Kansas City so far this year now stands at 15.
By this time last year — the city’s deadliest year ever recorded — Kansas City had 17 homicides.
One of the victims is a one-month-old girl, whose mother, 26-year-old Mariah Thomas, has been charged with endangering the welfare of a child. Police were told that she mistakenly placed her baby in an oven instead of a crib, according to court documents.
On Monday, 56-year-old Ruth Bowman was found shot and unresponsive on the sidewalk near East 50th Street and Bellefontaine Avenue. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Charlie Bowman, 55, has been charged with second-degree murder, armed criminal action and unlawful possession of a firearm in her death.
And on Wednesday, 43-year-old Lisa Lopez-Galvan, a Johnson County mother and beloved disc jockey, was killed when she was struck by gunfire during the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl Rally. Twenty-two others were injured in the shooting.
Two teens are being held at the Juvenile Detention Center on gun-related and resisting arrest offenses, the family court division of Jackson County Circuit Court announced Friday.
Others killed the past week and a half include Mark A. Jenkins in a shooting on the night of Feb. 7 near Brush Creek Boulevard and Virginia Avenue; Deion S. Lewis, 31, and Tyler J. Giles, 27, in a double shooting on Monday morning near East 39th Street and Woodland Avenue; an unidentified man in a shooting on Tuesday night in an apartment complex parking lot in the 6400 block of The Paseo; an unidentified man in a shooting on Tuesday night in a home in the 1600 block of Jackson Avenue and an unidentified teen and unidentified man in a triple shooting early Friday during at a gathering in a home in the 11200 block of Booth Avenue in south Kansas City.
No charges have been announced in any of those homicides.
With the recent killings, Kansas City has quickly closed the gap in the number of homicides this year when compared to the previous year, bringing the city within 2 homicides of where it stood this time last year.
2023 was the deadliest year in Kansas City history, with 185 homicides recorded, according to data maintained by The Star, which includes fatal police shootings.
