Senseless Juneteenth KC Jazz District shooting didn’t need to happen | Porter
In director John Singleton’s 1991 “Boyz n the Hood,” a groundbreaking, semi-autobiographical coming-of-age drama set in South Central Los Angeles, a character asks: “Can we have one night... where nobody gets shot?”
That was my immediate thought when I learned that one man was killed and five others were injured in a shooting Friday evening near 19th and Vine streets. Even with all eyes on Kansas City because of the FIFA World Cup 2026 and its related festivities being hosted here and the celebration of Juneteenth — the official end of slavery — some gun-toting knuckleheads thought it was a good idea to get into an old-fashioned shootout that killed 29-year-old David E. Beck III and injured five others, including three women.
In the coming days, I hope we will learn more about Beck, who family members described in an email to The Star as a gentle giant, the others that were shot, and what caused the third mass shooting in Kansas City in so many weeks.
On June 6, nine people were shot after a party at an unlicensed after-hours spot near 79th Street and Troost Avenue.
Last week, five people were shot in a highway shooting spree that captured the world’s attention. An Uber driver taking fans to a World Cup game at Arrowhead Stadium was shot during the spree. Kansas City police linked Oscar Sanchez-Munoz to the shootings. As of Monday, Sanchez-Munoz was still at large.
And now this latest shooting has cast another negative light on a city that must do all it can to combat the violence we saw play out Friday night near the city’s historic 18th & Vine Jazz District.
That the shooting occurred around 10:30 p.m. after a festive Juneteenth celebration in the Jazz District wasn’t lost on me, nor was the fact this tragedy occurred after police and security had left the area on Friday. One day later, calls for more police presence and security were made loud and clear.
"The 18th and Vine district is a crown jewel of Kansas City's cultural heritage, and what happened this weekend was a reminder that we have to be intentional about how we protect it, not just during events, but after they end,” Mayor Quinton Lucas said in a statement sent to me on Monday. “The Juneteenth Festival was a success, marred after its conclusion by unacceptable and reckless violence. For major events, we need to continue to invest in security after festivities wind down, when violence too often occurs. I’ll be meeting with KCPD shortly for a review of the shootout that occurred and their security plans to prevent similar instances in the future."
“We’ve been complaining about that for years. There’s all kinds of police officers in the city right now,” attorney Henry Service told The Star. Service’s law office is located in the Jazz District. “We even employed police officers from other states to police the World Cup, right? And for years they have not policed properly in the Jazz District. They just don’t police down there. They don’t care about the district.”
Kansas City is undergoing a $400 million initiative to improve 18th & Vine, so I find it rather odd that city leaders have not yet implemented safety protocols to protect the sizable financial investment being made in the area. Without delay, the City Council must address this oversight by working with the Kansas City Police Department, trusted private security firms and business and property owners in the area to implement enhanced security screenings during the warmer months in and around the area.
To start, I would like to see security checkpoints erected on weekend nights in the spring and summer as is done in the Westport entertainment district. Between April and October, on Friday and Saturday nights from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m., patrons entering the pedestrian-only area must pass through metal detectors, show a valid ID to verify they are at least 21 years old and be subject to bag searches. The screenings began after the City Council voted to allow privatization of sidewalks in the district in 2017.
“We just want the same stuff that everybody else has,” Service told The Star. “Same policing, same funding, same respect.”
“I think that there’s just a lack of an effort to put enough police officers on Vine and it’s always been that,” Missouri state Rep. Michael Johnson,” told The Star. “We’ve never really had community policing, ever, south of the river.”
In all fairness, initially I was concerned that the enhanced security measures in Westport would unfairly target minority patrons. Years later, some of the concerns I had have been alleviated. While the checkpoints are far from perfect and have not rooted out all the violence associated with Westport, the enhanced security screenings seem to work.
In the name of public safety and to protect the city’s investment in the Jazz District, I’d like to see a more robust security presence and enhanced screenings in and around the area on weekend nights.
