KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The record homicide pace in Kansas City, Missouri, is dominating headlines, but the total number of shootings has risen at an alarming rate as well.
There were 318 non-fatal shootings in KCMO through the first six months of 2020, a nearly 29% increase from 2019 and at least a four-year high.
According to KCPD data, there were 242 non-fatal shootings in the first six months of 2017, 214 for the first half of 2018 and 247 through June 2019.
KCPD responded to 82 non-fatal shootings in May and 72 in June, which are the two highest totals for any month since the start of 2017.
The second half of 2020 was off to a bloody start with 10 non-fatal shootings through July 5, according to KCPD. That’s two more than at the same time last year.
KCMO is on pace for more than 600 non-fatal shootings in 2020, which would easily eclipse any of the past three years — 506 in 2017, 450 in 2018 and 491 in 2019.
Those figures do not include homicides, but KCMO is on track to record the most homicides in a single year in the city’s history.
The increase in non-fatal shootings is proportional to the roughly 30% increase in homicides from 2019 to 2020.
The spike in violence across KCMO has caught the attention of federal authorities.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday that it will launch Operation Legend, named in memory of 4-year-old LeGend Taliferro, who was shot to death as he slept in his bed last month. Federal investigators will be deployed in KCMO to help clear unsolved homicides and shootings.
There already have been 99 homicides in KCMO this year — including 86 by firearms, according to KCPD data.
There were 73 through July 7 in 2019 and 76 in 2017. Kansas City recorded at least 150 homicides both years.
According to KCPD records, the 153 homicides in 1993 are the most in a calendar year.
