Kansas City, Kansas on track for lowest homicides in one year; also experiencing drop in all violent crimes
Officer Logan Smith has been with KCKPD for eleven years. During a ride along trip with Officer Smith on October 26
By Andy Alcock
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KANSAS CITY, Kansas (KMBC) — Kansas City, Kansas may break a record this year Police Chief Karl Oakman would like to break.
With a little over two months left in 2023, there have been 19 homicides.
The lowest number of homicides for a year ever in KCK is 22.
“The big thing is really giving patrol that ownership, that high visibility to in engage with the community. And the community knows that the police have their back so they can tell us stuff,” Chief Oakman said.
Officer Logan Smith has been with KCKPD for eleven years.
During a ride along trip with Officer Smith on Thursday, he talked about what he’s seen in that time frame.
“I remember when I started down in the South Patrol area, there were gunshots all the time. There were drive by shootings, homicides, everything going on down here. And now it’s drastically better,” he said.
Beginning in January 2022, Chief Oakman put a violent crime reduction plan in place.
The goals are to reduce violent crime and the perception of violent crime in KCK and to strengthen relationships with all community members.
Four strategic objectives are part of that plan.
They include strengthening the Patrol Bureau’s involvement in violence reduction, implementing plans without violating public trust, yearly community engagement events, and aggressively going after the fentanyl trade.
“Since January, we’ve recovered about 240 guns. That’s rifles, handguns from fentanyl related search warrants, we’ve recovered about 370,000 fentanyl powder pills. If someone is selling fentanyl and the person overdose and dies, we’ve been able to get 19 cases working where we’re charging the dealer, the supplier with the death of that individual,” Chief Oakman said.
KCKPD numbers show the 19 homicides so far are the lowest number at this point in the year in the last ten years.
Additionally, other violent crimes have dropped.
According to KCKPD numbers, rapes are down 40 percent from last year.
Aggravated battery, aggravated assault, shootings, and robberies have also dropped.
“We do our violent crime reduction nights where we identify those individuals who are wanted for violent crimes and we go and pick them up just a couple of months ago, we had an issue down in one of the housing complexes, had a homicide and several shootings and a robbery. So, we decided at 6:00 in the morning we were going to pay a visit,” Oakman said.
The chief said that visit included 50 officers and federal agents.
“And it’s been two months and it’s crickets down there,” Oakman said.
Oakman also says as a KCK native, he’s motivated to change the perception of the community as being crime-ridden.
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