In a rather bold move, KCPD Chief Corwin is putting the issue of Country Club Plaza Flash mobs back on the community. His point is clear given that keeping the Plaza safe is a job for babysitters and not police . . . Also, this is a very smart preemptive move before trouble starts.
Here is the money quote:
"As the weather warms, the problem of big groups of juveniles gathering on the Country Club Plaza is coming forth again. This past weekend, there were large numbers of young people dropped off at the Cinemark movie theater, but they didn’t go in. They simply congregated and loitered. Fortunately, there also was a large police presence, and no incidents were reported. However, we want to avoid what happened this time last year.
The issue is rearing its head again, however, and many are coming to police looking for answers. But this is not a police issue. It is a community issue and a parenting issue. The mission of the Kansas City Missouri Police Department, in partnership with the community, is to protect life and property while reducing fear and disorder. It is not to sponsor activities for youth or ensure parents are supervising them properly."
The KCPD Chief's post is DEFINITELY worth reading in its entirety . . . Given that this year's Plaza Flash Mob season might also include the blame game moving to the digital world.
I thought Beth made the city safer during her tenure on the City Council?
ReplyDeletegoodbye plaza. It was fun while it lasted.
ReplyDeleteYou know what? That's fucking awesome of Corwin. Not even kidding. Who wants to see more 16-year-olds in the court system? Nobody. Well, nobody except the lovely white supremacist commentors on this site.
ReplyDeleteThe Plaza is old news anyways. Anyone that was at P&L this past Saturday night saw how many thugs were there, 1000+. All they were doing was loitering around both inside the block and on the sidewalks outside. The ages ranged from about 13 to 30. Seems to me like P&L is gonna be the new hang out of choice for the local thugs given the fact that XPressions (Formerly NRG) is closing again, and word has it that Americas Pub is closing this fall. Let Cordish deal with all these thugs and we'll see how much of a safety issue the dress code was when things start happening at P&L.
ReplyDeleteNot "flash mobs". Young people hanging out does not a flash mob make.
ReplyDeletein kansas city no one is responsible for ANYTHING. its ALWAYS the other guys fault. the police chief--- not my fault, the city hall ---not my fault, the education system ---not my fault, the parents ---its not my fault.
ReplyDeletebut wait as soon as someting goes right guess who want to be the first to take credit. all the above.
just more excuses for doing nothing, except collect a paycheck.
ReplyDeleteIt's "The Culture". Just one more sign of a Nation that is FAILING, in Tony's vernacular. Of all the commentators that visit this REMARKABLE site, I would most like to read Chuck's take on this.
ReplyDeletei thought "flash mobs" are when people broke out in the thriller dance. Can we start having flesh mobs? Giggeddy Goo
ReplyDeleteGood for Corwin placing responsibility where it is due.
Its not that anybody wants to see 16 yr old in the court system (unless they are shooting up a afternoon gathering, lighting fires during the school day, etc etc) but if the police are brought in handle a dispute involving your 16 YO because they are embarrassing their community and preventing people from conducting their business safely "an impediment on somebody's livelihood, and not just the owner but all who have stake in the company success" then yes they go to the court system. The police are paid to uphold laws and the courts exist to challenge their judgment. If you take issue with this you best move to Mexico or begin a career path in politics.
in partnership with the community......----my ass
ReplyDeletesince when is it a problem with teens going to the plaza.
ReplyDeleteits a cover my ass statement.... the only proactive thing kcpd knows how to do.
ReplyDeleteIT'S THE PARENTS AND THE BLACK CULTURES FAULT YOU FUCKING IDIOTS!
ReplyDeleteIT IS THE FECES THAT HAPPENS WHEN TO MUCH STUPIDITY EATS TO MUCH ENTITLEMENT!!!!
ReplyDelete557 600 is one angry cop.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it's not the job of the police to provide baby sitting service but it is the job of our elected officials to answer the call of the community. I know people make fun of it but there should be something like night hoops or a computer library that stays open late on the weekends or just something that is an alternative for nothing but loitering encouraged by parents.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the parents need to get together and fund an activity for their kids instead of subjecting them to a flash mob situation.
600 Here, I didn't post 557 but it and a recent replay of King of the Hill inspired my post. Every day reading TKC makes me feel like Dale in the Harmonoholics episode and I thought I would share.
ReplyDeleteYes Dale, Now
Chief Corwin didn't CHANGE the responsibility for the behavior of young people; he placed it precisely where it belongs.
ReplyDeleteOn the parents and neighborhood leaders.
Now the real test is to wait to see who in the black community will publically accept that responsiblity and begin talking about the same emphasis on hard work and success as Bill Cosby recently did on his visit.
It's open mike night on the east side.
Anybody?
Finally, Corwin says what everyone else ought to be thinking: "policing" kids is the parents' responsibility, not the cops. Parents, know where your damn kids are and what they're doing and with whom. Pay attention and take some responsibility for your children. It's about freakin' time.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I missed something ..... what did the kids do wrong. What law was broken going to the Plaza.
ReplyDeleteMidtown Mom, there are programs for teens. But the teens who create the problems are not the ones who go to these events. You can have all the night hoops and night books and shit you want, but you aren't going to capture the audience that needs to be captured. The parents need to own this one.
ReplyDelete7:19, I can't quote the ordinance or statute, but when kids congregate in these groups and stop traffic, harass patrons and in some cases, commit other crimes with weapons, it's a problem.
ReplyDeleteThose artists need to update their Plaza paintings to show hordes of young orcs wilding, shuckng and jiving.
ReplyDeleteKCPD will do as little as possible. There is a long history of institutional reactiveness, not proactiveness. That is what we will get until we have local control.
ReplyDeleteThese groups of kids are bad news, I don't care if they are not doing anything, they are so badly parented and socially immature that they will do something. Then KCPD will have to get invovled and then you and I will bail them out of frivolous lawsuits with tax dollars.
The Clergy in the African American Community needs to be on stand-by. Kinda like SWAT to come out unannouced and inconvienenced to fix the problem to dis-ban the crowd.
ReplyDeleteHow did large groups of kids showing up on the plaza end up being a police problem? I mean where are the parents that are supposed to be responsible for their children? I don't think the police department, which has its hands full dealing with violent crime in this city (106 homicides last year) should be tasked with watching a bunch of kids for parents who clearly don't give a shit. That just seems unreasonable.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, if I recall from last year’s events, and follow-up meetings, wasn't Councilwoman Cindy Circo going to take the lead in coordinating a number of different resources to address this issue? Where is she? I guess providing even a small degree of leadership is too much to ask of City Hall, huh?!? Thayla (sp?) Cherry, where are you? Why hasn’t the Parks and Rec. Board provided activities for these kids?!? Church leaders, why aren't you doing more to assist these parents with their misguided children?!? Schools, where are the after school programs (or perhaps just more homework) to keep the kids busy and off the streets?!? Business leaders, where are the job training programs, internships, etc, to help kids develop some skills to become productive members of society?!?
I don't see this as a police issue, it is a community issue. Blaming the cops is nothing more than a copout by weak minded armchair quarterbacks that lack the backbone to step forward with real ideas to address the issue. The cops are an easy target it doesn’t take leadership to point the blame at them.
The community leaders need to step up to the plate and make something happen before this gets even more out of hand and the plaza goes the way of the Indian Springs Mall, Blue Ridge Mall and Bannister Mall. Kudos to Mr. Brooks, and Chief Corwin for speaking out about the need for more progress to address the issue, and to Tony’s KC for keeping the lack of progress fresh in everyone’s mind. At least three people are trying to provide leadership, which is more than most are doing.
It is the parents fault. Plain and simple.
ReplyDeleteMr Brooks is just looking for his next big public payday. A 70-something year old ex-cop doesn't have a clue about what's going on on the streets today.
ReplyDeleteAnd he's the last one who will ever talk about responsibility for each person's behavior. His whole routine is to blame someone else.
Other black leaders need to step up.
Here's an activity that these young thugs might pursue, dodging bullets.
ReplyDeleteLet's organize counter flash mobs of CCW folks and then let there be target practice. A few dead bodies laying on the streets will do far more to curb youthful enthusiasm than a few misguided programs. If You Want Blood, You Got It should be the theme song for The Plaza this summer.
Whoa, did Corwin say that there is a problem that CAN'T be solved by the police/government? That sort of thinking won't go over well on this site. JoCo racists are the real problem anyway.
ReplyDeleteNow what the fuck am I paying him for?
ReplyDeleteOK Corwin - you're no longer needed here.
GTFO you fucking welfare queen!
Sheriff Joe Arpaio (I am not a big fan, but he knows how to warehouse and control large numbers of people.), has show the way to deal with Plaza Flash Mobs.
ReplyDeleteArrest, detain, finger print and detain thousands if necessary in tents. The processing of this number of thugs will take 3 or 4 days.
The food is terrible, the thugs will hate it, their shitheel parents will have to bail them out, they will hate it, the flash mobs will be no more.
Nuance is lost on this culture. The only thing they understand is violence, threats and an interuption of entitlements.
Force, and only force will stop the mayhem, murder, rape, theft and assaults that accompany Flash Mobs and the Hip/Hop/Holocaust of death that has metastasized in our county's cities.
Don't be afraid to use force, the thugs running the streets will not be afraid to use it on you and your family, they prove it every day.
Incarceration in tents for a week or more, with some of that great prison chow, will make Flash Mob thugs think twice before returning to create havoc.
Ah Chuck always comes through. I agree with that. Arrest them, make it a bad experience, make their parents come down and pick them up and make it a real pain in the ass for all of em. And costly.
ReplyDeleteThat'd be the end of this flash mob shit.
Everyone has the right of assembly.
ReplyDelete4/11/11 7:22 PM
ReplyDeleteReally did you read the article the DID NOT " congregate in these groups and stop traffic, harass patrons and in some cases, commit other crimes with weapons"
The article says" This past weekend, there were large numbers of young people dropped off at the Cinemark movie theater, but they didn’t go in. They simply congregated and loitered. "
Where did you read.... weapons? Stopping traffice? other crimes? harrass partons?
11:01 Chuck.
ReplyDeleteYou sound like something the
1930's and Nazi Germany.
Gestapo tactics.
"he knows how to warehouse and control large numbers of people"
Called conentration camps.
Right before the Public safety sales tax and the E-Tax vote the Police Department talked about all the things that would go missing if the Tax was not passed. Now they say their is nothing they can do. Go Figure.
ReplyDeleteI like how it's nobody in City Government problem...... funny how the rest of the USA doesn't agree.
ReplyDeletehttp://edition.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/04/11/kumar.el.paso.juarez/index.html?hpt=C2
Why does the US worry about this if local governement is helpless?
4:25
ReplyDeleteThe shitheels assembling for their own versions of "The Beer Hall Putsch", sans any semblence of a goal other than chaos, the new Kansas City "Brown Shirts", or maybe "Saggers", thats who I want incarcerated.
The Nazis in our streets now, are not folks shopping for trinkets on the Plaza, you dumbfuck, its the killers, thieves, rapists, murderers and scum that force theri way into your homes and your face with contmept, hate, and malicious intent, that I want locked up under the rule of law.
Its preposterous to think that these Flash Mob Fucks are just there looking for some great values in the City's most important market place.
Your Pollyanna postion, on assholes with criminal intent, is exactly the cowardly policy that has this country perched on the precipice of anarchy.
LOCK THE FUCKING THUGS UP!!!
I ownder how many city and federal workiers have turned their kids loose on the Plaza to ferment chaos?
ReplyDeleteYour children, assaulting and inflicting economic damage in a popular shopping area, should have consequences.
You, as a parent, should be laible economically.
Litigatiion should be initiated by merchants against all parents, whose children are underage and destroying the city.
Why does a city worker collect money, wages from the city or the Fed Govt, and still destroy that same city by allowing their children to break the law?
Why wouldn't the city council be more concerned with this chaos, and look into resolutions that call employees on the carpet for the actions of their minor children?
Chuck WTF are you talking about?
ReplyDeleteDid you read the article ????
"This past weekend, there were large numbers of young people dropped off at the Cinemark movie theater, but they didn’t go in. They simply congregated and loitered." What property damage? What assault? What deatroying the City.
Are you on drugs or just can't read an article?
Chuck your the DUmB FUCK as you put it.
ReplyDeleteLearn to read the article dude with you racist glasses on.
Keep dreaming.
ReplyDeleteIt will be fine.
Nothing will happen.
Chuck you did not even bother answering the question.
ReplyDeleteLAME.
Chuck your right about one thing..."Nothing will happen".... with KCMO government... Nothing will happen.
ReplyDeleteKumbaya.
ReplyDeleteMulticulturalism.
Kumbaya.
I'm not bleeding.
There were no problems last year.
My daughter wasn't beaten in a fountain.
My son didn't go to the emergency room with a fracturred jaw.
There were no problems.
I have hair and women love me.
I drive a corvette.
There will be no violence on the Plaza this year.
George Bush was a great president.
Carol Coe is a great KC Leader.
Violence is at an end.
They were jsut there to help old ladys cross the street before choir practice.
Their pants are just too big by accident.
Rappers make some great music.
It will be ok.
I agree. Chuck your right about one thing..."Nothing will happen".... with KCMO government... Nothing will happen.
ReplyDeleteLame City Government.
Gazelle #1: "Jesus, is that a herd of wild dogs?"
ReplyDeleteGazelle #2: "Yeah, but don't worry, I saw them earlier at the water hole and they didn't do anything."
Gazelle #1: "What about all those lions?"
Gazelle #2: "They just killed and ate a Kudu, so they are ok, and I heard that they are thinking of going vegatarian."
Gazelle #1: Wow, things are really changing. The water hole is safer than ever!!!
Gazelle #2: "Yep. You just gotta undersatnd where these predators are coming from, they are really pretty nice if you can learn to walk a mile in their paws."
Gazelle #1: "Well, lets head on down to the water hole, you want me to watch while you drink?"
Gazelle #2: "Nah, that would be considered impolite by the lions and wild dogs. Lets just drink away, it will be ok."
7:30
ReplyDeleteBy the way, if every thing I say is true, am I still a racist?
Not being a smartass, just looking for clarification.
Your talking about City Government and their "helpless" attitude but they always need more money to fix problems they never attend to address.
ReplyDeleteno your not a racist.
ReplyDeletemy bad...
ReplyDeleteWhere's Cindy Circo... no doubt figuring out how to pay all those MAST Ambulance workers their retirements... HA!!!
ReplyDeleteCorwin is full of shit.
ReplyDeleteKCPD a useless part of City government.
ReplyDeleteCorwin is a joke.
ReplyDeleteHe's the same guy that put extra police protection on his girlfriend while he was having fights with his wife. In the meantime he can't do anything about the Plaza and teens. Go figure folks.
http://blogs.pitch.com/plog/2009/07/chief_corwins_girlfriend_gets_24_hour_police_protection_while_hes_out_of_town_kansas_city_missouri_kctv5.php
Corwin is full of shit.
ReplyDeletehttp://blogs.pitch.com/plog/2009/07/chief_corwins_girlfriend_gets_24_hour_police_protection_while_hes_out_of_town_kansas_city_missouri_kctv5.php
The Chief is right... I don't want my tax dollars wasted on trying to supervise the youth. There shouldn't be anything done until something bad happens. Who cares if they congregate around the Plaza? I live here and as long as everyone is being kind and minding themselves, why does it matter? Our city is growing and we should appreciate that. If the community is unhappy about it then someone should find a solution to the problem, not use the police. The police should be utilized for violent crimes, not petty property theft and loitering teenagers. Take the property theft and damage to court! I'm so sick of hearing that the police should be babysitting the community- most of them are not even responsible for their own actions!
ReplyDelete