Right now people are only concerned with their own financial mess and there's very little compassion for anybody who isn't on an X-mas list.
Kansas City has a long history of ignoring most murders of people of color and maybe that's why we haven't heard much news on this front. As usual, Alonzo Washington has been keeping pretty good count of the homicide rate . . . Sadly, the reaction from local politicos hasn't seen half as much dedication.
In fact, response from local leadership to the current Kansas City murder rate has been nothing less than abysmal.
The Mayor's effort to join an anti-gun group led by New York City Mayor Bloomberg hasn't made a dent so far and was nothing more than PR gesture. Everyone in this town, including the KCPD, seems to agree that keeping AND REPORTING accurate crime stats should be a priority in the future. And sadly, so many marches, meetings, press conferences and political rallies in local high crime areas have yet to decrease the number of dead people on local streets.
What's more disappointing to me is that Kansas City has seemingly grown accustomed to the violence. In 2005, the high murder rate sparked far more discussion than this year's death tally. During the month of October CNN reported that the "127 killings in 2005 were the most for any year in this decade, but 2008 could top that." Thankfully, odds are that we won't reach 1993's horrific number of 153 but the lack of interest in seriously addressing this problem from virtually every local institution from local big money interests to Mayor Funkhouser makes me think that next year we'll see even more record breaking killing on Kansas City streets.
If the rate of homicides keeps up at present levels I'm thinking that the announcement that we've broken a decade old record will come sooner than anyone thinks . . . Sadly, West of Troost it's hard to find many metro leaders or media people who really care.
sad
ReplyDeleteyou know why no one cares? its because it aint nothin but a bunch of thugs dyin. fuckem.
ReplyDeleteWhat number are we at now?
ReplyDeleteDo you have the KCK stats as well? You need those to tell the real story since many of these crimes on both sides of the state line are linked.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, the Mayor and his wife sit in their living room trying to convince GMA's audience what an asset Gloria is to the city.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure the answer to our homicide problem can be solved if they attend just a few more out of town conferences.
Glad to see our Mayor taking the lead on this one.
ReplyDeleteNot.
Disappointed about this, I think we need to do more to save more lives before the year ends.
ReplyDeleteWhat the hell is the city manager doing?
ReplyDeleteWhat the hell is the KCPD doing?
ReplyDeleteNothing. Except giving tickets, asking for more money, going to conferences, hiring more PR flacks.
Anonymous said...
ReplyDelete"Disappointed about this, I think we need to do more to save more lives before the year ends." 12/01/2008 06:51:00 PM
actually, i think maybe we have the wrong idea - maybe ol' osama bin laden should nuke k.c. and just get it the fuck over with.
Anyone want to get all academic about this and discuss "per capita" numbers? I know that's crazy, but I thought I would throw it out there.
ReplyDeleteDon't sell or buy drugs, don't join a gang, don't go to parties where gang members are present and don't go out after 1:00 in the morning and your chances of getting killed go down by like 80%. I'm not joking....the murder rate includes a lot of people who get killed doing very sketchy things late at night. For the general public, it would be good to hear how many murders occur to more random victims, so we could assess our specific likelihood of getting killed.
ReplyDeleteAnd if you can assume that no one in your family will kill you, including your spouse or boyfriend/girlfriend, then your chances of getting killed go down significantly more.
ReplyDelete