We live in a remarkable city. Kansas City provides the best of everything – food, music, culture, and friendliness. Together, all of us contribute to making Kansas City special and envied. While it’s world-class (thank you, World Cup), it’s not perfect. There's too much violent crime. Any violence is too much, really, but we have more than we should. When I became Interim Police Chief in April, I said that the Kansas City Missouri Police Department would focus on reducing violent crime and strengthening community relationships. Here's what we’re doing:   KC 360 Pilot Program   ..read more

Few people in Kansas City have as much day-to-day interaction with those experiencing mental illness or substance abuse crises as the members of KCPD. That’s why we have worked diligently for years now to prepare and equip our staff to safely interact with those in crisis, get them to the resources they need and, if possible, keep them out of the criminal justice system. In the early 2010s, we realized how important it was, so we created a squad of Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) officers dedicated to serving and following up with members of our community with mental illness who came to the att ..read more

Within the month of April, our Police Athletic League had 1,019 contacts with youth. In the current school year, three Youth Programs Section officers and one sergeant worked with more than 2,000 students teaching D.A.R.E. and G.R.E.A.T. curriculum both virtually and in person in 18 schools.* They spend 15 to 18 hours a week in the classroom. They often eat lunch with students and join them at recess. Before the pandemic, they reached 4,000 children in 30 schools. The relationships our Youth Services Unit builds through these interactions are priceless. They build bridges in the community and ..read more

On March 23, our Board of Police Commissioners approved a policy that we have been working toward since early last summer: the First Amendment Protected Activities Policy. This was a reform requested by our community. The new policy establishes guidelines and procedures for department members when engaging with individuals participating in First Amendment-protected activities. We take an oath to uphold the Constitution, to include the First Amendment. Protecting everyone’s right to expression is integral to our mission.   The department did extensive legal research and looked into best pr ..read more

Kansas City, Mo., was, tragically, part of a national trend that saw a large increase in homicides in 2020. The KCPD, however, is doing everything to buck those trends. Our homicide rate dropped significantly in the fall, and our clearance rate for 2020 was well above the national average. Not all the national data from 2020 have been compiled yet, but FBI statistics from the first nine months show that homicides were up 20.9 percent in America. In the nation’s 69 largest cities, homicides through Sept. 30, 2020, were up by 28.7%, according to the Major Cities Chiefs Association. Kansas City r ..read more

In the last three weeks, two social workers have been killed in the line of duty. On Nov. 30, a man in Seattle stabbed his caseworker, Kristin Benson, to death. On Dec. 2, a man in Melbourne, Florida, shot and killed Travis Knight, a social worker with whom the suspect had worked at a mental health treatment facility. This also happened to a Kansas City-area social worker in 2004. A 17-year-old in Johnson County attacked his mental health social worker, Teri Zenner, with a knife and chainsaw when she did a home visit in 2004. She died at the scene. Social work is a dangerous profession. A 2017 ..read more

Friday, Nov. 13, will be the 49th Annual Metropolitan Chiefs and Sheriffs Association Awards for Valor. This event honors officers across the metro area for acts of bravery and heroism, and many KCPD members will be recognized. While this event has happened for nearly 50 years, the year during which these officers performed these acts has been anything but ordinary. We are under more scrutiny than ever before, but still, these officers did not hesitate to run toward danger and put themselves at great risk of harm. The ceremony will stream live on KCPD’s YouTube Channel. Missouri awards will be ..read more

The “surge” portion of Operation LeGend may be complete in Kansas City, but this partnership between KCPD and our federal law enforcement partners to reduce violent crime is going to continue well into the future. I am at a meeting of the Major City Chiefs Association today at which U.S. Attorney General William Barr is discussing Operation LeGend. Operation LeGend brought hundreds of federal agents into Kansas City to help our agency investigate violent crimes during an unprecedented increase. They helped us take dozens of murderers, and many more shooters, robbers and other perpetrators of ..read more

A reporter asked me at a press conference on Monday how helpful the 200 additional federal agents were who came to Kansas City to help us amid an unprecedented spike in violent crime for Operation LeGend. After I said how much those additional resources helped, the reporter asked what a 400-person reduction to our department would mean to solving and preventing crime. Quite frankly, it would be devastating. We are already doing our part to help in these tough economic times. We’ve cut $5.6 million from the current fiscal year’s budget this summer. Like other city departments, we are being ask ..read more

Despite a record-high workload, the Kansas City Missouri Police Department is maintaining a clearance rate that is well above-average for homicide cases. Our solve rate is even higher. Our clearance rate is recorded as a Uniform Crime Report (UCR) rate, as mandated by the FBI. Our UCR clearance rate is 70% today. The national average is 62%. UCR is based on casework completed this year compared to total homicides this year. It gives credit to all cases solved in 2020, regardless of whether the homicide occurred in years prior. As of today, we have cleared 62 homicides from 2020 and 27 from pre ..read more