KANSAS CITY, Mo. — There’s a new task force in Kansas City, working to make business that are struggling with crime safer for the community.
Mayor Quinton Lucas signed the ordinance for the multidisciplinary task force outside of the Express Stop at 10th and Locust on Tuesday afternoon.
The business has been the location of a murder, 14 police reports, and 59 service calls all within the last year.
“We believe that every neighborhood in Kansas City deserves peace of mind and what we don’t want to do is what so many of us have known for years and certainly what I knew growing up, that the convenient store down the corner was a place where a lot of bad things happen. That you just lived with it for generations,” Lucas said.
“We’re saying that’s no more. We’re going to make sure that we reduce violent crime by listening to the people by looking at those quality-of-life issues and by more than anything, focusing on places.”
The task force is made up of city leaders within the health department and public works and will use a strategy called risk train modeling to reduce and prevent violent crimes like armed robberies and shootings.
“By focusing on features of the landscape where the risk of crime is high, we can work to improve challenged areas from the inside out, making them less prone to victimization and less suitable areas for offenders to choose to commit their crimes,” KCPD Captain Jonas Baughman said.
They said certain risk factors like poor lighting, health code violations, and illegal dumping make a business more prone to crime, so their job is to collaborate with business owners to improve upon those challenges and make their businesses safer.
“Frankly, any problem, any violation is troubling for us and what we want to do is very quick, corrective action to make sure it’s something that doesn’t build too long because we will be taking more action in more situations where we see it happen a number of times,” Lucas said.
Lucas says they will shut down businesses with continued violations if necessary.
