Violent 2023 Memorial Day in mind, mayor touts ‘positive trend’ in KC homicide numbers

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas touted a “very positive trend” in the city’s homicide numbers Friday, while urging the community to refrain from violence over the Memorial Day weekend.

Homicides in the city, he said, were down 15% compared to a five-year average at this point in the year. While he cautioned that other cities that have seen previous drops in homicides have seen rising numbers this year, he said the city was “trending in the right direction.”

Kansas City marked a grim milestone in 2023, as the city recorded more homicides than any year ever recorded. There were 185 homicides in the city last year, according to data tracked by The Star, which includes fatal police shootings. Before that, 2020 was considered the city’s deadliest year ever, with 182 killings.

As of Friday, Kansas City has recorded 56 killings so far this year, according to The Star’s database for 2024.

Lucas commended the Kansas City Police Department’s work, as well as proactive efforts through social programs in helping to push homicide numbers down.

“This is not a celebration,” he told reporters at a press conference Friday morning. “We don’t celebrate at any point until the point at which we have zero homicides and zero non-fatal shootings in our city. We do, however, think that it’s important that the people of Kansas City know the work that we are doing to address violent crime in Kansas City, the work we’re doing to investigate violent crime, the work we’re doing to prevent violent crime in Kansas City.”

Last year’s Memorial Day weekend saw the city record seven homicides.

“We see, any number of our holiday weekends, more shooting activity, more alleged celebratory gunfire,” Lucas said. “We ask everyone to put the guns down.”

Celebration at the Station

Lucas acknowledged the Kansas City Symphony’s popular Celebration at the Station event at Union Station this weekend will be the first large public event held in the space since the mass shooting at the end of the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl rally in February.

Lucas said the city’s police department has a safety plan in place for the event and urged people to attend.

“I look forward to being there,” he said. “I’ll be safe, my family will be safe and we welcome all Kansas Citians to come back to what is to me an important annual public event.”

Deputy Chief Joe Mabin, with the Kansas City Police Department, said the department has worked closely with event organizers to plan for “any contingency” and will have both on-duty and off-duty officers available to support the event, as well as assistance from the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office.

“This isn’t the first time we’ve done this,” he said. “We always take lessons learned from the past into account, but we’re confident in the plan that we have for this weekend.”

Officials did not release details of their safety plan for the event.

Curfews

Curfews for youths will also go into effect for the summer starting this weekend, Lucas said.

• Kids 15 and younger must be accompanied by an adult citywide starting at 10 p.m.

• Kids 16 and 17 years old must be accompanied by an adult starting at 11 p.m.

• Youths 17 and younger must be accompanied by an adult in an entertainment district starting at 9 p.m.