Forty-nine lives have been lost to violence in Kansas City this year. That’s 13 more murders than this time in 2015, continuing a trend that started right out of the gates with two murders on January 1 alone.
Forty-three percent of 2016’s murders have been cleared or solved. For comparison, 61 percent of murders in 2015 were solved or cleared.
Mayor Sly James has voiced his growing frustration with the rise in violence in the city. He formed the Violence Task Force to find answers outside of the slew of KC’s anti-violence organizations and coalitions like KC NoVA and the AdHoc Group Against Crime.
The task force is expected to give recommendations on how to bring down the city’s violence by the end of the year, but committee members at the June 27 meeting seem to be at a crossroads on how to accomplish it.
"What are we really trying to do here? Because the people in the community think this is a farce,” said Rodney Knott, CEO at ReEngage Staffing Services. “I hear it all the time that this is just some, something that the politicians are doing just to say we are doing something. The people of this city deserve better than that. They deserve better than that.”
“Violence is not a simple problem to solve or we would have solved it a long time ago,” said Deidre Anderson, executive director at United Inner Services.
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Brian Abel can be reached at brian.abel@kshb.com.
