After the killings of six people since Friday night, Kansas City is on pace to potentially surpass its worst year on record for homicides.
As of Monday, 99 people had been killed across the city, compared to 95 by this time in 2020 — which marked the deadliest year on record with 182 homicides.
This year’s count, compiled, includes fatal police shootings, which are not included in the Kansas City Police Department’s data. By KCPD’s figures, the city had seen 91 killings by this time in 2020 compared to 97 so far this year.
This year has seen more bloodshed compared to this time in 2021 and 2022, when the city had suffered between 70 and 75 homicides, according to The Star’s data.
At a Board of Police Commissioners meeting Tuesday, City Councilwoman Melissa Robinson asked the board to “empower” the police department to put together an anti-violence plan consisting of “focused deterrence” strategies.
Such a plan typically provides social services and intervention to people likely to commit crime, while threatening severe punishment for acts of violence. It stems from the understanding that a fraction of residents commit a majority of a city’s violent crimes.
One previous focused deterrence strategy, the Kansas City No Violence Alliance, or KC NoVA, targeted known criminals and offered them a choice: change your behavior or go to jail. In exchange, they would receive help finding jobs and getting an education.
The plan garnered national attention after killings dropped to 86 in 2014, the fewest in Kansas City in more than four decades. But the police department, under then-Chief Rick Smith, reportedly abandoned the strategy after he took the helm in 2017.
Robinson said Tuesday she would like to see a plan in place in the next few months, noting that the city is “in a crisis.”
“We need to have carrots and sticks,” Robinson said.
Police Chief Stacey Graves told Robinson they were “speaking the same language” and said a review was underway to figure out all the puzzle pieces needed. Focused deterrence efforts are also part of a citywide initiative Graves and other officials announced earlier this month.
Graves on Tuesday called the number of killings this year “unacceptable” and denounced the use of firearms during arguments.
The chief recalled meeting a grieving mother at the scene of a mass shooting over the weekend that left three people dead and six others injured. The mother still had her child’s blood on her hands, feet and face.
Graves said the woman was a wife and mother, just like herself. She urged Kansas Citians to be concerned about the city’s violence, even if it is not unfolding in their neighborhoods.
During an impassioned speech at the board meeting, Graves expressed concern that so many young people are growing up surrounded by trauma and noted that one of the recent homicide victims was a young teenager.
“Where is the outcry for this?” she asked.
Preliminary data shows that homicides are down in dozens of other U.S. cities this year. Writing in The Atlantic, one crime analyst said the nation “may be experiencing one of the largest annual percent changes in murder ever recorded.”
Not so in Kansas City, which is also outpacing Missouri’s second-largest city, St. Louis, in homicides this year, with police there reporting 82 killings as of Monday.
The comparison is significant given that St. Louis has seen more homicides than Kansas City in each of the last four years, including when the Gateway City saw 263 homicides in 2020, which marked its highest homicide rate in the last five decades.
While homicides have occurred across Kansas City, some areas have seen more violence than others.
Within several blocks around East 35th Street and Prospect Avenue, seven people have been killed and six others have been wounded, including a child under the age of 5, in shootings this year.
During one week in April, police received more than 30 reports of gunfire in the area and recovered more than 200 rounds. The department then increased its number of officers there.
As of Tuesday, non-fatal shootings are also up slightly, from 226 by this time last year to 236 this year, according to police data.
At the board meeting Tuesday, Mayor Quinton Lucas urged residents to help police get violent criminals off the streets. He called the city’s murder rate a solvable problem.
“We don’t have to live like this,” he said.