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Kansas City Metro Homicide Tracker: Frequently Asked Questions

Posted at 4:32 PM, Jul 17, 2015
and last updated 2017-02-27 13:49:09-05

1. What is the Kansas City Metro Homicide Tracker?

This is an effort by 41 Action News and KSHB.com to document homicides in and around the Kansas City area. Far too many times, the killing of a person is limited to a brief update in the newspaper or online, or a quick mention on a TV newscast. While this tracker certainly doesn’t do everything it could, we felt it important that people should know just a little bit more about the people who lived and died among all of us in the Kansas City metro area.

Homicide tracker maps

2. What's considered the Kansas City metro area?

For the purposes of this tracker, we will initially include Leavenworth, Wyandotte, Johnson, Miami and Linn counties in Kansas, and Platte, Clinton, Caldwell, Clay, Ray, Jackson, Lafayette, Cass and Bates counties in Missouri. The Metropolitan Statistical Area considers those 14 counties as the Kansas City metro area. We may change this as the year progresses.

3. What's considered a homicide? How are you counting?

The definition of a homicide is the killing of one person by another. Generally, if the person’s death is an intentional one, we are attempting to include it. This tracker also includes people who were killed by police.

4. Why this project?

As mentioned above, far too many people die at the hands of others in our area without us knowing much, if anything, about them. This is an effort to document their cases, as well as hopefully allow you to help us tell their stories. We encourage people to share their memories of those who died, as well as help us tell the story before and beyond their death. This project is inspired by similar efforts around the country, including, but not limited to Homicide Watch DC (and its sister sites), the Los Angeles Times’ Homicide Report and the Gun Crisis Reporting Project in Philadelphia.

5. How can I contribute/comment/correct/share information with you?

You can email Hannah.Schmidt@kshb.com.

 

Hannah Schmidt is a Senior Digital Content Producer at 41 Action News. Our tracker is a work in progress, so please share your feedback and ideas!