KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City, Missouri, Mayor Quinton Lucas met with the community a town hall Monday for his Reform Project KC initiative.
Lucas plans to host a series of community meetings which he hopes “will guide Kansas City’s ongoing work to build a safer community for all residents.”
"For months and months people have been asking how do we actually create better and more enhanced community relations in terms of how we address public safety issues," Lucas said.
Lucas said it's important to get to the root cause of crime.
"Today is about listening to communities, listening to folks in neighborhoods who say we need to make sure we're investing in prevention, in intervention," Lucas said.
Reform Project KC is based on four pillars — prevention, intervention, enforcement and administrative reform.
The meeting Monday at the Southeast Community Center focused on crime prevention.
KCMO Health Department Violence Prevention and Policy Manager Dr. Marvia Jones joined the mayor for the meeting at which community members peppered the panel with questions and concerns.
South Kansas City resident Robert Walker said he felt it was important to attend Tuesday's town hall to help come up with solutions.
"I've tried helping with other city issues too, but you know everybody needs to be involved it's just not one group or one person, everybody needs to," Walker said.
Walker said he'd like to see conversations around controlling or keeping track of stolen or illegal guns in Kansas City.
Lucas said all aspects of how the government works must be examined to find solutions to violent crime, rather than just policing or prosecution.
"This isn't just a police-community relations conversation, which we have a lot of, this isn't just a conversation about homicides, it's a conversation about how does better lighting in neighborhoods make things safer for us, how do more youth activities make a difference," Lucas said.
Instead, he suggested crafting policies that deal with the underlying issues that lead to crime.
For instance, Lucas agreed with a community member who asked about KCMO's affordable housing policies. The city should focus attention and money on “safe, sanitary housing,” which Lucas said would improve the overall crime issue."
As far as gun laws, he said “there are a lot of things unfortunately we can’t do” because of state law, but he noted that the city added a law to keep firearms out of the hands of domestic abusers last year.
KCMO also is part of a lawsuit against a gun manufacturer related to violent crime.
Watch the meeting below.
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For jurisdictions that utilize the Greater Kansas City Crime Stoppers Tips Hotline, anonymous tips can be made by calling 816-474-TIPS (8477), submitting the tip online or through the free mobile app at P3Tips.com.
Annual homicide details and data for the Kansas City area are available through the 41 Action News Homicide Tracker, which was launched in 2015. Read the 41 Action News Mug Shot Policy.
