KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- People gathered for coffee and doughnuts at the Morning Star Community Center on Monday morning, wishing each other a Happy New Year.
Hope and faith was the message of Monday’s gathering but with a more somber undertone.
The AdHoc Group Against Crime held its annual vigil to remember the past year’s homicide victims.
“If we come together, we can fix this thing,” Anita Randle-Stanley said.
Randle-Stanley was one of those who came to the vigil on behalf of her cousin, Turreze Harris. Harris was the 66th homicide victim of 2017 in Kansas City, Missouri.
“I said on June 19 that I will stand every month for him. I’m here,” Randle-Stanley said.
Harris was killed in a drive-by shooting in the summer at 71st and Cleveland. The crime is unsolved.
As Kansas City’s homicide rate has climbed over the last few years, the question is how do we get better results?
“It begins with us. It begins right at home. It begins with us parents, us adults,” Randle-Stanley said.
Harris’ name was read out loud by clergy members and other family members of victims. They read the names of 227 homicide victims from around the metro.
“Many of the homicides that we’ve seen this year and past years are still unsolved, so we want the community to know that these folks we’ve lost this year were loved. They were somebody. And we care as a community,” President of AdHoc Damon Daniel said.
AdHoc has held the annual vigil since the 1990s, when the homicide rate in Kansas City, Missouri reached 153, the highest it’s ever been. The city nearly met that number in 2017 with 149 homicides.
Many blame drugs for the outrageous homicide rate in the 1990s. Some folks wonder what's causing the spike now. Daniel believes it's a trickle-down effect from the 90s: poverty, desperation, trauma.
“That’s one of the things we’re going to be focusing on in 2018 is really going upstream and looking at how do we deal with some of those root causes, which means we’re going to be leveraging more mental health services for those that have been impacted by crime and violence, to deal with some of that anger,” Daniel said. “[And] providing some new programs that’ll provide economic opportunities for those in disenfranchised communities.”
Daniel said the vigils help families grieve and also feel supported enough to keep fighting.
“This isn’t about anyone but those who have lost loved ones to homicide. And for those families to have a community come together is the very beginning stages of mourning that loss of life; knowing there’s a community behind them that’s holding them up that they can depend on throughout the process,” Daniel said.
Randle-Stanley said someone knows something, and it’s time to speak up.
“If it takes until it kills me, I said this last year in 2017. We’re going to see justice,” Randle-Stanley said.
