Kansas City men gathered to see what they could do to stop violence on Saturday.
"I just feel that it's important for me to show my support as well as try to help come up with a remedy to try and solve some of the problems that have been going on in Kansas City," said Charlie Dennis of Kansas City.
It’s part of the group "Stop the Killing" lead by a variety of religious leaders hoping to find common ground. They are looking for men to patrol the streets.
"We are going to ask for 100 men to sign on with us and help us to protect and patrol the streets because we don’t want to wait for the police to get there, we want to be able to say hey you can't sell drugs here, hey you can't victimize this woman here,” said Vincent Muhammad with the Justice Matters Coalition.
Muhammad says the recent homicides has led the push to find more men to help patrol the streets.
This time last year there were 68 homicides in Kansas City, as of this weekend there are 82. In KCK, 30 people have been killed this year. Brannae Browne, is one of them and her family is laying the 15-year-old to rest on Saturday.
"That's why we are trying to galvanize the men together because crime is more than murder on murder it's other underlying substances that creates that murder on murder that we see," said Missouri Representative Brandon Ellington of the 22nd District.
"I would like everybody to be able to step up and you know take the place in the fires amongst men you know men you know to step up," said Dennis.
For more information, you can contact the group on their Facebook page.
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Ali Hoxie can be reached at ali.hoxie@kshb.com
