KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A day after a deadly shooting during a July 4th parade in a Chicago suburb left six people dead, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas is calling for the return of horse-mounted police in the city.

As more challenges present themselves in entertainment districts and mass gatherings locally and nationally, it’s worthwhile for our police department to consider reinstatement of our horse-mounted patrol units, which enhance security and visibility for our crowds.

@QuintonLucasKC

The mounted patrol unit was disbanded in 2019 by former Police Chief Rick Smith who said the decision was made in efforts to shift staffing to directly confront violent crime.

Lucas’ message argues for the return of the horse-mounted unit in entertainment districts where large gatherings of people take place.

After the unit was disbanded, Friends of the KC Mounted Patrol, a non-profit organization in support of the patrol unit, argued that people are more likely to approach police on horseback than in a patrol car.

“If you have ever watched the mounted patrols going through a neighborhood, you see people coming out of their homes and businesses to see the horses and the officers,” Emily McLeod, an animal chiropractic doctor and member of the group, said in 2019. “Whereas, if you take cars, patrol cars in the same neighborhoods, you see people quietly go into their homes. So it’s just a very different approach to policing.”

Officials in Highland Park, Illinois, took a suspect into custody hours after the shooting took place at an Independence Day parade.

Along with the six victims who died, 24 others were hospitalized in the shooting.