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 previous years, for a total of 89. Just last week we identified persons of
interest in two 2019 homicide cases. Our detectives and crime lab staff deserve
for their work to be counted on those cases, as well, which is what UCR does. We
will never stop seeking justice on unsolved homicides.
Most homicides aren’t solved like on television shows. If we
don’t figure out who did it at the scene, there’s extensive work that needs to
happen in the days, weeks and months that follow: witness interviews,
extracting data from phones, social media analysis, video review, forensic
analysis of DNA, firearms and other evidence. Those things take time. They also
take people and equipment, and both of those are finite resources. All of those
things are vitally important to ensure we identify the right person as a
suspect and put forward a case that can successfully be prosecuted.
The violence in Kansas City this year was outpacing our
capacity, despite the addition of eight additional homicide squad detectives
and 12 additional assault squad detectives earlier this year. (Aggravated assaults,
usually shootings, often are the precursors to homicides.)
That’s why Operation LeGend has been so helpful. By giving
us additional investigators and resources, they have allowed us to conduct
these investigations at a faster rate than we could have on our own. Operation
LeGend is assisting not just with homicides but with all violent crimes:
shootings, robberies and more. And since they have been in town, the pace of
homicides and other violent crime has slowed, which is good for everyone in
Kansas City.
Operation LeGend also has helped in detaining violent
criminals prior to trial. Police are only the first stop in the criminal
justice system. Courts, judges, prosecutors, corrections and probation and
parole all have a part to play in holding accountable those who would harm
others. Officers can make arrests all day, every day, but if the rest of the
system doesn’t keep up, dangerous people remain in the community.
That’s why we define a case that is “cleared” differently
from a case that is “solved.” Solved is what we can do. Cleared is up to other
players in the criminal justice system. Solved means we have probable cause to
charge a suspect for a crime. Cleared generally means that the county
prosecutor’s office agreed and charged the suspect or the case was
exceptionally cleared.
We currently have 14 cases submitted to prosecutors’
offices, of which 13 of these are solved - not cleared - cases. One case is
cleared, but there are still additional suspects to charge. The remainders are
awaiting charging decisions by prosecutors or a grand jury’s decision. If every
solved case was a cleared case, we would have 102 total cases cleared this year,
for an 80% solve rate.
Community cooperation continues to be vital for us in continuing
to clear these cases. In so many cases, all it takes is one person coming
forward. And in all homicide cases, you can remain anonymous and get a $25,000
reward.
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