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 recorded 148 homicides in 2019 and 176 in 2020. That’s a 19%
increase, which was below the national average in increased homicides.
(Although right now the national average is composed of just the first nine
months of 2020.)
But all the numbers do not ease the grief of anyone who lost
a loved one to violence, and 2020 was, indeed, a record-setting homicide year
in our city. That’s why we undertook many initiatives to combat the violence,
such as assigning additional homicide and assault detectives and Operation LeGend – a 10-week influx of nearly 200 federal agents to help us
solve violent crime cases and get the most violent offenders into custody.
Homicides fell significantly after Operation LeGend, which ran from mid-July to mid-September. You can see the monthly rate of homicides this year compared to the average over the past five years. We cannot definitively say Operation LeGend was the cause, but there was correlation. Before Operation LeGend, we were on pace to have more than 200 homicides in 2020.
Our clearance rates go against national trends recently
noted in the Wall Street Journal,
showing that police in the United States have been clearing fewer murders
during the pandemic.
Despite being below the national average for homicide
increases, the increase was nonetheless devastating for our community. We had
1- and 4-year-old murder victims. Fathers, sons, brothers, mothers, sisters and
daughters lost their lives to senseless violence, inflicting untold trauma on
families.
The men and women of the Kansas City Missouri Police
Department, alongside our community, local, state and federal partners, will do
everything we can to prevent and solve these crimes. Operation LeGend left us with
additional federal resources to stop gun crimes and more. As always, police cannot succeed in a vacuum, so
we need the help of residents to make their neighborhoods safer. If you know
something that can help us solve or prevent a violent crime, let the TIPS
Hotline know at 816-474-TIPS (8477). You could even earn a $25,000 cash reward
and stay anonymous.
Send comments to kcpdchiefblog@kcpd.org.
