Giving our all to get a triple murderer into custody ASAP

We have been working diligently to combat violent crime in our city. What happened on Sunday morning was the epitome of senseless violence: in the course of about an hour, one suspect killed three people in three different places and shot two more in South Kansas City and Raytown. A 4-year-old child was among the injured. The shootings were not random and appear to be domestic violence-related. 

We immediately mobilized as many resources as possible to find and stop someone who had very quickly become a serial killer. In addition to patrol officers regularly assigned to the areas, we brought in more than 100 people - detectives from nearly all of our investigative units, Tactical Team officers, and our federal partners with the U.S. Marshals, FBI and ATF - to identify and track down the suspect. We also identified and located family members who could be potential victims and told them about what was happening so they could get to safety. Rosilyn Temple and Mothers in Charge were there comforting the loved ones of our numerous victims and helping them understand what we needed to do as police to put an end to the spate of violence. Within 12 hours, the suspect was in custody. Issac Fisher has now been charged with three counts of murder and 15 other charges.

During the course of the investigation into Fisher's location, we did something we don't do often: we asked people in the neighborhoods where we thought he might be to stay inside. We also flooded the area with police, but telling people to stay in was the best protection we could provide at the time. We know this was a scary time for some of our South KC residents, and I appreciate everyone remaining calm. I hope you know we were doing everything we could to get him into custody as quickly as possible to prevent any further violence. 

Our investigators, with assistance from the community, were able to track the suspect to a relative's house about 10:30 p.m. Sunday and took him into custody without incident. I commend the detectives and officers who gave all they had to this case. We wouldn't do this job if we didn't care deeply about the safety of our residents, and in no case was that more evident than how we came together and deployed every available resource on Sunday to find and arrest a violent individual before he could hurt anyone else.

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A majority of this year's homicides could not have been prevented by law enforcement

As of today, 107 people have been killed in a homicide in Kansas City this year. That is a significantly higher amount than at this time in years past. But what is different about this year is the relationship between victims and suspects. Contrary to popular belief, a majority of these homicides could not have been prevented by law enforcement. No amount of officers on patrol can stop a simmering family dispute or someone who chooses to end a petty argument with a firearm.

Through initiatives like the Kansas City No Violence Alliance, we have made a significant impact on what we call group-related violence. This violence arises out of criminal groups’ illegal activities and cycles of retaliation. (Some might refer to these groups as “gangs,” but not all of them are.) When KC NoVA fully came to fruition in 2014, Kansas City experienced its lowest homicide rate in more than 40 years, with 82 murders. And you know what? The group-related homicide rate has remained relatively consistent since then. The work of KC NoVA and its community partners is keeping that in check with everything from social services to strict enforcement on members of particular groups in which a violent crime occurs.

But there are so many other homicides we can do nothing about. Consider the two people murdered this past weekend. One was a son who killed his father. The other was a woman who got into an argument with another woman and asked her boyfriend to go over and confront the woman she was fighting with. It appears the boyfriend shot up a car full of people, not just the woman in question. One died, and three others were transported to hospitals in critical condition. The only way law enforcement could have intervened in either of those situations was if someone notified us. And we are begging you to let us know when something like this is occurring or about to occur.

In so many of this year’s homicides, someone had to know that something was amiss. Someone had to know a dispute was brewing. Someone had to know that their friend or family member was angry and armed. If someone had called us, officers might have been able to stop the homicides from ever taking place. As City Council Member Alissia Canady said at our Board of Police Commissioners meeting this morning, “Everyone is looking for us to do something, but it needs to come from the community.”

We know the motive in 53 of this year’s 107 homicide cases. Of those 53 homicide motives we know, 24 of them were arguments. Instead of resolving a conflict through discussion and compromise, poor anger management skills and easy access to guns have led to the death of at least 24 people in Kansas City this year. Again, in many of these cases, multiple people knew that a conflict was at hand, but no one reached out to law enforcement to ask for help in changing the eventual outcome.

The second-most frequent motive that we know of in this year’s homicides has been domestic violence, with 14 cases. Two of those were murder-suicides. Not all were intimate partner violence. Several involved parents and children. Domestic violence rarely erupts into homicidal levels of violence out of the blue. If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship – even if it is with your own child – please contact us. We can work with victims to get them the resources they need to stay safe.

Seven of this year’s homicide victims have been 16 or younger. Several of them were young children – innocent bystanders who were victims of adults unable to resolve conflicts in a civil manner. Their loss should outrage us all.

With homicides up over recent years, and many people asking us, “why?” I encourage everyone in Kansas City to ask themselves that question. I ask everyone to consider what your role is in decreasing the violence in our community because you have much better reach and influence than we do over the people you know. If you know someone is angry, unstable and armed, tell us. If you know a conflict is about to escalate into violence, tell us. If you know someone who is being victimized by a violent abuser, tell us. It’s the only way police can intervene.

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The status of 2015 homicides in Kansas City

Many media reports recently have given the impression that Kansas City’s homicide rate is much higher than normal. I’ve heard rumors that gangs or drugs are the cause. None of this is true. I’d like to clarify exactly what’s happening with murders in our city and shed some light on what we’re doing about them.

As of this writing, Kansas City, Missouri, has had 72 homicides in 2015. At this time last year, we had 57. Last year, we experienced the lowest number of homicides in 42 years. It is discouraging we have more so far this year, but it still remains below where we have been in almost any prior year in the last four decades. And with the exception of homicides and aggravated assaults (assaults with a weapon), every other category of crime defined by the FBI is down in Kansas City so far this year. As of August 1, total crimes were down by 5 percent.

Kansas City continues to avoid the deadly outbreaks of violence that have plagued other cities of our size. I posted about this earlier this summer. As of Sept. 22, for example, St. Louis has 148 homicides – more than twice those in Kansas City (and our population is greater by about 150,000).

The murders here aren’t the result of some gang or drug war. More often than not, they occur between people who get angry with each other and choose to settle their conflict with a firearm. (Sixty people have been murdered by firearms in Kansas City so far this year.) Of the 51 homicide cases so far in which detectives have determined a motive, 22 of them were the result of an argument. Domestic and family violence accounts for the second-highest number of homicides by motive, with 16. And it’s not just among intimate partners. We’ve had cases of an uncle killing his nephew, a step-son killing his step-father, and a woman’s boyfriend killing her toddler son while he babysat him. Cases like that are incredibly sad and incredibly difficult to prevent.

We’re taking many steps to reduce homicides. I outlined some of those in this post. Those efforts include everything from lethality assessments to prevent intimate partner violence by getting victims to safety, to the Kansas City No Violence Alliance, to the Police Athletic League.

But as I’ve said many times, police are only part of the solution. We can’t be at every family gathering at which an argument breaks out and someone pulls out a gun. We can and have identified who is most likely to commit acts of violence and then targeted them for either aggressive prosecution or social services through Kansas City NoVA. But we can’t be everywhere or know everything. We can’t prevent everyone who shouldn’t have a firearm from having one.

Fortunately, the community has been working alongside us like never before. We will continue to build and nurture relationships in hopes of establishing trust so members of our community feel encouraged to contact us before a crime occurs.

And after crimes occur, we’ve seen witnesses step up and give vital information to solve many of our most recent killings. Just this weekend, more than a dozen people came forward in a homicide that took place in a crowded area. In years past, witnesses in that situation tended to just scatter and never speak with police. Things are very different now, and I am very grateful for this increased cooperation. A community full of people who make it known that violence will not be tolerated – and that the irresponsible use of firearms will not be tolerated – is ultimately what will reduce the number of homicide victims in Kansas City. The Kansas City Missouri Police Department is ready and willing to assist in that endeavor.

Preventing domestic violence in our own families

Did you know that police families are two to four times more likely to experience domestic violence than other American families, according to studies? The nature of our work is stressful on any family. Police work long, odd hours, and they see some of the most disturbing things our society has to offer. But that does not make it OK for an officer to be violent toward his or her spouse or children.

Worse yet, studies of some police departments have found that officers will cover up for their colleagues who have abused a family member, such as not filing a report. It is our job to protect community members, and the family member of a colleague is entitled to just as much protection as anyone else.

Although this is not, to my knowledge, presently an issue at our department, I am very concerned about the well-being of our officers and their families. To ensure domestic violence does not become a problem within the KCPD family, I am requiring all law enforcement members to undergo domestic violence training developed by the Institute for Family Violence Studies at Florida State University. This training is targeted at law enforcement. Some of its goals are: “To support a law enforcement culture that prioritizes prevention efforts and officer/family wellness and also disapproves of officer-committed domestic violence, and to encourage officers to ask for help when they need it before violence occurs.”

As the program states, officers are role models for the communities they serve, and we “must ensure our actions at home are worthy of our oath.” We have taken many steps to reduce and prevent domestic violence city-wide (like the Lethality Assessment Protocol that my predecessor wrote about), and this is another step to do so. Preventing this type of violence begins at home.

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Partnership to protect domestic violence victims so successful shelter must expand

I've told you before about the amazing things that have resulted from our Lethality Assessment program - many, many more domestic violence victims getting the shelter and services they need. This program began in June 2009 and trained every patrol officer - about 900 of them - to administer an assessment of about a dozen questions to victims to determine how likely they are to be killed by their abuser. If the assessment shows the victim is in danger, police at the scene immediately will put her in touch with a domestic violence victim advocate from the Rose Brooks Center, a domestic violence shelter and services agency.

Last year, Lisa Fleming, Rose Brooks Center's Chief Operating Officer, explained what a game-changer this Lethality Assessment and partnership with the police department has been. She said, "When I look back over the years at community collaborations that resulted in such a big systems change in how we go about responding to victims of domestic violence, this is huge – one of the biggest.”


This partnership has protected many women and children, so much so, that it's created overcrowding at Rose Brooks. It's a good and bad problem. The good is that so many more victims are being shielded from abusers and receiving services that are helping them put their lives back together. The bad is that so many victims are being served there simply isn't room for all of them, and Rose Brooks has had to turn some away. The Center began an emergency fund-raising campaign last year to build onto its shelter to make more room for the victims being sent there by police through the Lethality Assessment Program. They broke ground on the project yesterday. We're excited about the continued partnership with Rose Brooks and the possibilities the expansion brings to get more victims of domestic violence to safety.

Send comments to kcpdchiefblog@kcpd.org.

KCPD’s LAP program is getting more domestic violence victims to safety

PRESS RELEASE:

KCPD’s efforts to get the most endangered victims of domestic violence to safety are having an impact.

While rates of domestic violence have shot up in cities around the country in the poor economy, Kansas City’s domestic violence homicides have dropped by 25 percent, and domestic violence aggravated assaults have fallen 7 percent in a one-year period (June 2008 to May 2009 compared to June 2009 to May 2010).

Kansas City Missouri Police implemented the Lethality Assessment Protocol (LAP) in June 2009 and has seen numbers tumble since then. LAP requires officers responding to domestic violence calls to administer an 11-question survey to the victim that predicts how likely she or he is to be killed by her or his intimate partner. The victim’s answers can trigger officers to immediately call a domestic violence victim advocate to arrange for safety planning for the victim. Kansas City was one of five cities in the nation to pilot the program and is the largest law enforcement agency to have permanently implemented it.

KCPD has partnered with Rosebrooks Center and Synergy Services on the project. Since KCPD started LAP, the shelters are housing an average of 16 more women daily and are taking 19.3 percent more hotline calls.

“Simply put, these are victims the agencies may never have been able to reach and help,” said Captain Mark Folsom, Commander of the Special Victims Unit.

From June 2009 to May 2010, officers screened a total of 2,010 domestic violence victims. Nearly 69 percent of them screened as “high danger,” and more than 57 percent of the total screened spoke to a domestic violence counselor on the phone. One out of five victims that police screened for LAP continued working with a counselor and receiving services.

Captain Folsom said LAP has been a holistic approach to overcoming domestic violence.

“KCPD has always done a great job with the law enforcement side,” he said. “We hold the suspects accountable and provide justice for the victim. Working with the advocacy side has allowed us to help the victims. Women who may not have realized the danger they were in, simply did not know who to call, or may have just needed some encouragement to take that step, have been able to get help in their situation.”

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Lethality Assessment Program is reducing domestic violence in Kansas City

From our monthly Informant newsletter:

Domestic violence assaults have plummeted by more than a third since Kansas City Police embarked on a unique project to protect victims nine months ago.

“When I look back over the years at community collaborations that resulted in such a big systems change in how we go about responding to victims of domestic violence, this is huge – one of the biggest,” said Lisa Fleming, Chief Operating Officer of Rosebrooks Center, a domestic violence shelter and service agency.

The Lethality Assessment Protocol requires officers responding to domestic violence-related incidents to ask victims 12 questions based on academic research to determine how likely it is for a victim to be killed by an abuser. If the victim’s answers indicate he or she might be in great danger, officers do everything they can to get the victim in touch with a domestic violence victim advocate for safety planning and arranging to get the victim out of the situation. They use cell phones to contact domestic violence advocates at the scene of the crime to get them in touch with victims.

KCPD was one of just five police departments in the nation to get a grant to try the project. The grant lasted for five months, but the Lethality Assessment will go much longer than that.

“We’ve decided to continue it as the way our department does business,” said Captain Mark Folsom of the Special Victims Unit.

Total domestic violence assaults in Kansas City fell from 371 in July 2009 to 240 in February 2010. Capt. Folsom said it’s a trend that’s bucking nationwide trends of rising domestic violence cases. 

Although the numbers are dropping, Fleming said Rosebrooks’ beds have never been fuller. She said a big reason for that is the Lethality Assessment program, which is bringing in people who never before would have sought help.

“The risk of re-assault is reduced by 60 percent when a victim walks through the doors of a domestic violence program,” Fleming said. “This has been such a successful intervention for making that happen.”

 

Though it’s more work for officers responding to these calls, they think it’s a good thing, said Sergeant Bernadette Bond, who helped implement the Lethality Assessment in the South Patrol Division. She said in the past, it was frustrating to show up to a domestic violence incident, take a report and leave without really being able to help the victim.

“We didn’t give them an option – there was no follow-up,” Sergeant Bond said. “At least this way there’s someone who cares, who follows up with them. They have an option.”

Sergeant Bond said she knew the program would be a good thing when one of her most gruff and veteran officers told her after training that it “was something we should’ve done a long time ago.”

“I knew then that we were on the right track,” Sergeant Bond said. “We need to be doing everything we can to empower victims.”

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Officers honored for putting in extra work to keep domestic violence victims safe

At yesterday's Board of Police Commissioners meeting, I presented Certificates of Commendation to officers Kim Shaw and Kate Mahurin (they're pictured above with Capt. Pat Grove). With the help of Synergy Services, these officers have gone way above and beyond to ensure victims of domestic violence can get help in their situations. Here's what they did:

KCPD implemented the Lethality Assessment Program in June 2009. This program requires officers responding to a domestic disturbance to ask the victim 12 specific questions about his or her relationship with the abuser. How the victim answers can trigger officers to call a domestic violence advocate from the scene and put them on the phone directly with the victim to arrange for safety planning or other services. But the North Patrol Division took the program one step further.

North Patrol is conducting a pilot program that involves officers re-contacting domestic violence victims to see if they’ve followed up with the advice of domestic violence advocates. Officers Shaw and Mahurin are leading this pilot project. They attended five training courses in 2008 and 2009 to prepare for the program. They now collect and review all of North Patrol’s domestic violence reports and lethality assessment forms. On a weekly basis, they use these reports and work with a domestic violence advocate to re-contact high priority victims in person.

Of the 41 victims they re-contacted from July to October 2009, 38 – or 95 percent – asked for more help. On some cases, Officers Shaw and Mahurin determined the victim’s injuries were greater than originally thought, so they pulled the city cases and re-filed them as state felonies. Additionally, in the course of meeting with victims, Officers Shaw and Mahurin also met with abusers. Seven out of the eight abusers they contacted from July to October asked for counseling services from domestic violence agencies.

Sergeant Lawrence White said victims and domestic violence advocates have praised the work of Officers Shaw and Mahurin, and all are confident that the officers’ work will lead to reduced domestic violence incidents. The Special Victims Unit is reviewing the results of the North Patrol Pilot Project to possibly implement city-wide.

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Recognizing the work of the Domestic Violence Section

Last week, I presented our Domestic Violence Section with a Special Unit Citation and two of their leaders, Captain Mark Folsom and Sergeant James Trout, with Meritorious Service Awards. The award specifically covered their accomplishments from 2007 to 2008, but they haven't slowed down. This June, they implemented the Lethality Assessment Program, and they're undertaking other initiatives now in addition to the day-to-day investigation of cases. But here's a description of what they did in 2007 and 2008 that merited them the awards:

These two years were full of major accomplishments for the Domestic Violence Section, all of which aimed to better protect Kansas City’s victims of domestic abuse.

Three additional detectives joined the Domestic Violence Section during this time. Two were in response to a manpower study that said more detectives were needed on Watch I. The third was part of a $250,000 grant the Section secured in 2007 from the federal Office of Violence against Women. It not only paid for a detective to proactively work on domestic violence issues but also funded a bilingual victim advocate from the Rose Brooks Center to come work in the Section.

Another major project the Section completed was a study with the Kansas City Community Health Improvement Program to determine the cost of domestic violence in Kansas City in one day. This study revealed that about $58,000 is spent per day, including law enforcement hours and shelter housing.

Sergeant James Trout and Captain Mark Folsom also realized that photographic evidence for domestic violence cases was decreasing, and prosecutions suffered. So in 2008, they led the charge to outfit all patrol cars with digital cameras to better document evidence of domestic abuse. The cameras also will serve to collect evidence on other types of investigations, as well.

Captain Folsom and Sergeant Trout also helped write a new city ordinance that the City Council passed in October 2008. The Violation of Order of Protection Ordinance required a great deal of coalition building and getting support from all domestic violence shelters and service organizations, city and county prosecutors, judges, and the City Council. The ordinance allowed city prosecutors to charge violations of orders of protection instead of submitting the cases to state prosecutors, where they often slipped through the cracks. Before the ordinance, just 27 percent of violations of full orders of protection cases were prosecuted. Prosecution rates are now up to 69.4 percent. Perpetrators are now found guilty about 64 percent of the time, with the most common sentence being 180 days in jail plus two years of probation.

In addition to all of these projects, members of the Domestic Violence Section have cut down the time it takes to complete a case in which suspects were not arrested at the time of occurrence to less than 90 days, despite the fact that their number of cases has increased by about 1,200 per year over the past two years. They also meet regularly with domestic violence service organizations and are researching best practices for investigating elder abuse cases.

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Survey predicts peril for domestic violence victims

Police officers responding to domestic violence situations have a new tool to get victims to safety.

Starting June 1, KCPD officers began administering the Domestic Violence Lethality Screen for First Responders to victims of domestic violence. Twelve questions based on academic research determine how likely it is for a victim to be killed by an abuser. If the victim’s answers indicate he or she is in great danger, officers do everything they can to get the victim in touch with a domestic violence victim advocate for safety planning and arranging to get the victim out of the situation, said Captain Mark Folsom, commander of the Special Victims Unit.

Three years ago, a professor at Johns Hopkins University studied hundreds of murders and attempted murders involving intimate partners around the country, including many from Kansas City. She found several factors can trigger a lethal outcome such as threats of death, unemployment, previous attempted suicide and more. She used those factors to develop a screening instrument that has been highly successful in Maryland. Captain Folsom began studying the work more than a year ago and worked to bring the survey to KCPD to be administered by district officers responding to cases of intimate partner violence. Kansas City, Mo., is one of just five cities in the nation to receive federal grant funding to initiate the screening program.

A certain number of “yes” answers to questions on the survey or an officer’s gut feeling that the victim is in danger prompts an immediate call to domestic violence service providers.

All district officers have now been trained to use a cell phone to call 24/7 victim advocates at local domestic violence service providers from the crime scene. They are to encourage the victim to take the phone and speak with the advocate to devise ways to get out of the situation immediately and set up future safety planning appointments. Afterward, police staff follow up with phone calls to see if the victim has kept those appointments.

“We are so grateful and appreciative of the Police Department’s cooperation,” said Lisa Fleming, Chief Operations Officer of Rosebrooks Center, a domestic violence shelter. “This has required so many police resources and a change of their regular protocol. … This has the potential to have a huge impact.”

On the first day of the assessment, officers in Central Patrol Division screened in a high-danger domestic violence victim and got her shelter and safety planning through Rosebrooks Center.

Captain Folsom pointed out that 60 percent of the city’s non-aggravated assaults and 33 percent of aggravated assaults are domestic-violence related. In 2008, eight people died in domestic violence-related homicides in Kansas City.

KCPD has committed to the lethality screening program for at least five months and will continue if it is successful.

“We can do the best job in the world of investigating a crime at the scene and arresting the bad guy … but ultimately if we can’t find a way to break the cycle of violence, then we’re not going to be able to really impact the problem,” Captain Folsom said. “The key is – in my opinion – getting people to the advocates who can help them. This program does that.”

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