By Don Bradley
Organizers typically don’t set community meetings to start at 4:30 in the afternoon.
People are still at work. Or driving in rush hour. Kids are just getting home from school. Got to get dinner.
You want a crowd? Shoot for 7 p.m.
Unless the subject matter is the spike in crime that this summer has rattled the Waldo, Brookside and Red Bridge neighborhoods.
On Wednesday, residents of those neighborhoods packed a large auditorium on the Research Medical Center-Brookside campus to hear what’s behind the summer surge in auto crimes and burglaries and what authorities are doing about it.
People started streaming in before the 4:30 start and they stayed late. Dinner could wait.
“You’re at your wit’s end, that’s why you’re here,” Sean Anderson, of the Waldo Area Business Association, told the standing-room only crowd.
They are. They’re also mad, scared and frustrated about the spree _ particularly that thieves are operating with impunity, pulling on car doors in driveways and parking lots in broad daylight knowing people can see them.
At one point, an audience member asked the room how many had seen evidence of a crime on their doorbell cameras.
Lots of hands went up.
B.J. Kidd, a crime analyst for the Kansas City Police Department, presented slides showing property crimes for the year.
“Huge spike the past couple of months,” Kidd said, taking note of the steep climb in auto incidents.
An audience member asked if they should ever intervene if they see a crime in progress.
Every panel member at the front of the room shook their head, “No, bad idea.”
Other members of KCPD, Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker, deputy chief prosecutor Dion Sankar, juvenile officers and neighborhood leaders also attended the event and answered questions from the audience.
Big on the minds of residents: the lack of police presence and long delays for Emergency 911 response.
Police Capt. Justin Pinkerton acknowledged a manpower shortage means fewer officers on the streets and longer response times for 911 calls.
“I’m not saying that’s acceptable,” Pinkerton said. “But that’s what limited staffing means.”
Some in the audience said they seldom see a patrol car in their neighborhood.
Pinkerton said the department began to see a trending down of the number of officers after Covid and has struggled to catch up.
Other area departments, such as Independence, Grandview and Liberty are also hurting for officers.
“We’re doing better now, but it’s going to take years to catch up,” Pinkerton said.
An audience member asked why officers leave?
“For some it’s age and others just decide police work isn’t for them,” Pinkerton said.
That’s when someone from the audience loudly said: “Probably because crimes aren’t being prosecuted.”
That got Peters Baker to her feet. She has faced criticism for not filing charges against perpetrators.
She explained the difficulty in prosecuting cases where not all the evidence is there. She also defended her record by saying her file rate in cases submitted to her office by police was over 80 percent.
“That might surprise some of you,” she said.
She laid out the challenge: a jurisdiction from State Line to Oak Grove, thousands of cases, more every day, and only 75 prosecutors.
Another member of KCPD tried to explain the long waits for a 911 response.
Calls are first taken by “call takers” and that info is then passed on to dispatchers. Each call is assigned a “code” depending on the level of urgency.
Shootings, home invasion, burglary in progress would be code 1, highest priority. Welfare checks, stolen property would be code 3 or 4.
Often times, however, officers in patrol zones are “blacked-out” meaning they are on another call.
In those cases, the call goes further out.
“Your officer might be coming from north of the river,” the person said.
The highest 911 call volume is after 4 p.m. and even more so on summer nights with increased tavern disturbances and domestic situations.
Houselessness was another topic on people’s minds. What can be done about harassment and public urination? That’s been an ongoing issue in the Red Bridge-Indian Creek areas.
Officer Marc Canovi of CIT (crisis intervention team) said he has only a few hours a month to work with the houseless. He said a team goes into the camps to check on people with substance abuse and mental health issues.
Officers will also arrest those causing public disruption.
“We can come, and we can arrest, but they are going to get signature bonded-out pretty quick,” said Canovi, who also talked about low-barrier shelters, meaning homeless shelters that accept anyone regardless of sobriety.
That mention brought 6th District Council member Johnathan Duncan down from the audience and he talked about the need for low-barrier shelters.
“If you are using and houseless, there is nowhere for you to go,” Duncan said. “Kansas City is under-resourced.”
Another audience member asked about juvenile offenders and whether parents could possibly be charged with a crime.
That brought applause.
Sgt. Michael Vulje said he talked to one such mother.
“To my knowledge, the mom has not taken any initiative,” Vulje said.
Kidd, the crime analyst, said juveniles, contrary to common thought, often don’t commit crimes for money or anything to do with drugs.
“But it is cool to post on social media — driving fast in a stolen car,” she said. “What can we offer them? I don’t know.”
At the end of the event, police left the gathering with some do’s and don’ts:
- Don’t leave your car running to go inside a business.
- Always lock the house and car even if leaving for only a few minutes.
- Make sure streetlights are working. If not, call the city.
- If you think your house or property is vulnerable, KCPD has officers who will make a visit and offer security recommendations.
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