Police host 5th Annual Broadway Bridge Run on Sunday

PRESS RELEASE:

The Broadway Bridge and nearby roads will close the morning of Sunday, April 18, to make way for officers and community members running to raise money for Special Olympics Missouri.

The Fifth Annual Broadway Bridge Run/Walk aims to have 1,000 runners and walkers. In 2009, about 700 runners raised nearly $30,000 for area athletes with intellectual disabilities. The Kansas City Missouri Police Department hosts the run.

Registration will begin at 8 a.m. April 18 at Market Park at 3rd and Main Streets in the City Market. The races will begin at 9 a.m. The event features a 10K run, 5K run/walk and Family Fun Run. The run starts at the City Market, goes across the Broadway Bridge, winds around the Downtown Airport and back again.

Plenty of entertainment will be available for non-runners, as well. Radio Disney will be live on site, and numerous music acts will perform on the main stage. KCPD will have McGruff the Crime Dog as well as the department’s Helicopter, Mounted Patrol, Canine and Tactical Units in the City Market. Great prizes also will be up for grabs in a silent auction.

To register for the race, go online to www.somo.org/broadwaybridgerun.

The following road closures are scheduled Sunday from about 8:30 to 11 a.m. to accommodate the Broadway Bridge Run:

• 169 Highway, both directions including the Broadway Bridge, from 9 Highway to 5th Street
• 9 Highway southbound entrance ramp to 169 southbound

Patrons to the Downtown Airport will be allowed in and provided a police escort to ensure the safety of the runners. Officers will be positioned at the following locations to provide the escorts to the Airport:
- 169 southbound at 9 Highway
- 9 Highway southbound at the 169 southbound entrance ramp
- 6th and Broadway

Man killed in fight Tuesday night identified

At 8:12 p.m. Tuesday, April 13, police were called to a residence in the 8800 block of Evanston Way in regard to a disturbance. Upon arrival, they located a man in the driveway with no signs of life. He was pronounced dead a short time later. He has been identified as 58-year-old Billy J. Webb, a black male from Kansas City, Mo.

Witnesses say the victim was involved in a physical altercation with an unknown black male before he collapsed. The black male suspect fled northbound in an unknown vehicle. The cause of death is not being released. Anyone with information is asked to call the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-TIPS (8477).

Police ask parents to help

PRESS RELEASE:

After recent events of large congregations of unruly juveniles, Kansas City Police want to remind parents about local laws and tips for ensuring your child doesn’t get caught up in illegal activity.

Laws
• Curfew for children under the age of 18 is Midnight to 6 a.m. on Friday and Saturday, and 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. Sunday through Thursday.

• If there is a curfew violation, the juvenile will be detained, and a parent or guardian must respond to pick them up, and the parent will be issued a citation.

Tips
• Know your child’s social network. Monitor their Facebook, Twitter, MySpace or other social media accounts and watch what they’re texting.

• Parents should be aware of a new trend called “Flash Mobs.” This is when a large group gathers quickly – usually through the use of social media. Sometimes it can be for something fun like a choreographed public dance, but more recently, it has been for the purpose of causing chaos by stampeding, assaulting bystanders, and damaging property. This can be a very dangerous event and a public safety issue for young persons.

• When dropping your child off, it is your responsibility to know where they are going and what they are doing.

Kansas City Police will have a large presence on the Country Club Plaza this weekend and will strictly enforce all municipal and state laws. The police response will be mobile in case an unruly crowd congregates elsewhere in the city.

If you hear of a group organizing an event that could get out of hand, please call the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-TIPS (8477).

Thanking the behind-the-scenes life-savers

I often write about the heroics of our officers, but there’s another group of people who deserve recognition for daily saving lives in Kansas City: 911 calltakers and dispatchers. Without these dedicated individuals, police, firefighters and paramedics would never get to where they need to be to help people.

This is National Telecommunicator Appreciation Week, and our department is celebrating it today. It was by sheer coincidence, however, that today also was the day I heard a report from our Logistical Support Division commander on the performance of our calltakers and dispatchers. What I heard made me even more grateful for the work these men and women do.

First, our Communications Unit is down by 14 people, and due to budget restrictions, we have been unable to hire more. We are requiring all calltakers and dispatchers to work mandatory overtime. This is a strain on them and their families, and everyone in Kansas City should be grateful for their sacrifices. They have been short-staffed for more than a year and yet still did something amazing.

In 2007, 45.5 percent of all 911 callers in Kansas City got put on hold. Their average hold time was 48 seconds. And though the numbers of calltakers and dispatchers dwindled, by the end of 2009, just 23.2 percent of 911 callers were put on hold, and only for an average of 22.8 seconds. This reduction was achieved through a number of quality assurance measures.

Speaking of which, most people don’t know the quality assurance measures our department takes in terms of 911 calls. We have staff dedicated to listening to them to review the performance of calltakers and dispatchers. They dissect these calls to determine whether the calltakers and dispatchers are conforming to policy and meeting very high standards. I learned today that 14 members of our Communications Unit earned perfect scores throughout all of 2009. That is a remarkably hard thing to achieve, and I’m so proud of them.

So take some time today to thank the 911 calltakers and dispatchers who are the backbone of Kansas City’s public safety. Send a message to kcpdchiefblog@kcpd.org and I’ll be sure to pass it on to those dedicated men and women.

Victim shot, killed at 43rd & Forest identified

At about 8:38 p.m. Monday, April 12, officers were called to the 4300 block of Forest to investigate several calls about shots being fired. As the officers approached the area, they saw several muzzle flashes from gunfire near two houses on the east side of Forest. The officers found a white car with a man inside. He had been shot and was pronounced dead at the scene. He has been identified as 41-year-old Richard Franks Jr. of Kansas City, Mo. Two other men were inside the car with Franks, and police also found several guns in the vehicle. 

While the officers were investigating the scene, residents of a third house on the west side of the street became confrontational with the officers. Believing the area was potentially unsafe for investigators to conduct an appropriate investigation, tactical officers were called in to remove the occupants of the three homes so investigators could process the homicide scene.  Several people were taken into custody, and detectives were able to move in and process the scene at around midnight.

Police questioned the men in the car with Franks and are working to determine how or if those in the three houses might be involved. There are no suspects in custody, and anyone with information is asked to call the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-TIPS (8477).

Plaza incident

As you’ve probably heard, large crowds of juveniles converged on the Country Club Plaza on Saturday night and wreaked havoc throughout. They intimidated shoppers and diners, destroyed property, committed a strong-arm robbery, and a juvenile suffered severe head injuries in an aggravated assault. Police took control of the crowds using traffic crews to close streets, pepper spray to disperse the crowds and a helicopter overhead to help officers on the ground find the most troublesome areas.

We will be taking a number of measures to ensure those who shop, visit, dine at and stroll around Kansas City’s historic Plaza area can do so without fear. We will be meeting with the Plaza Merchant’s Association, NAACP and others to put together the best possible plan to allow Plaza patrons to fully enjoy themselves while keeping disorder at bay. We plan strict enforcement this weekend and for future weekends, and it will be mobile in case problems arise elsewhere.

We will be closely following the development of any similar events. If you hear of a group planning to organize something like this, please call the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-TIPS. You will remain anonymous, and you could save someone’s life. As I mentioned, one young man was seriously hurt in Saturday night’s incident.

A brief description of what took place:

Due to larger crowds of juveniles there the previous (Easter) weekend, we put an extra 18 officers and three sergeants to patrol the Plaza this past weekend. The activity began when about 200-300 juveniles exited the Cinemark theater and began to move east. More juveniles joined them, though officers said most did not drive. They were either dropped off by parents or arrived by bus. Not until after the incident did police learn the gathering may have been planned on social media sites. Police believe there were about 700 total juveniles involved, ages 11 to 17.

Here is a full report on incidents that happened that night.

Send comments to kcpdchiefblog@kcpd.org

Victim found in fire at motel identified

UPDATE: Lakeshia Ross's death has been ruled a homicide

_______________________________________

At approximately 10:30 a.m. April 10, Kansas City police were called to the Relax Inn Motel at 6300 Blue Parkway to meet the fire department in regard to a dead body. Firefighters told officers they came because of a fire in a motel room, and after entering the room, they found an unresponsive female. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Her death is suspicious and it appears the fire was intentionally set. The cause of death is not being released.

The victim has been identified as 34-year-old Lakeshia M. Ross, a black female from Kansas City, Kan. There are no suspects in custody, and anyone with information is asked to call the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-TIPS (8477).

The newest Kansas City Police officers

Meet your newest KCPD officers. They had their badges pinned on last night at the Police Academy graduation and swore to uphold local, state and federal laws. These 28 men and women are Kansas City's 140th Entrant Officer Class. They range in age from 22 to 44. There are seven women, 21 men, and 10 are ethnic minorities. Their class was funded as part of the federal COPS Hiring Recovery Program grant we received last year.


These officers now begin their probationary break-in period. They will spend the next eight weeks with a field training officer learning to apply their academy training to real-world policing on the streets of Kansas City. After their first six months, a review board will decide whether they can come off probation to become full-fledged officers.


I look forward to seeing what these new officers can do. One of them could one day have my job.


Send comments to kcpdchiefblog@kcpd.org  

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.”

Send comments to kcpdchiefblog@kcpd.org

Response to lawsuit verdict

Our official response to the verdict in the Danny Holmes lawsuit is as follows:


"The Board and the department will be consulting with its attorneys to determine what the next step for the department will be in this case. Among the issues to discuss will be appealing the verdict."

Send comments to kcpdchiefblog@kcpd.org