Testimony: Kansas City Celebratory Gunfire Persists Despite Public Safety Pleading

Tragically, the holidays didn't slow down rampant Kansas City gun violence.

Ahead of a South KC speech by the top cop tonight . . . One of our favorite columnists and a former Kansas City council member writes:

"The sporadic gunfire that began earlier in the evening became a continuous fusillade of shots shortly after 11:30 p.m. and continuing until nearly 1 a.m. before finally tapering off.  The call volume to 911 became so large that I couldn’t even get a recording asking me not to hang up.  The line just went dead every time I called to report the gunshots.  I have never experienced that before."

Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . .

Celebratory gunfire reaches high

Despite televised pleas not to engage in celebratory gunfire New Year's Eve by KCMO Mayor Quinton Lucas, KCMO Police Chief Stacey Graves, my son Missouri State Representative Mark Sharp and Michele Shanahan DeMoss - the mother of 11-year-old Blair Shanahan Lane who was killed here during the July 4 th holiday in 2011 by celebratory gunfire - I literally heard thousands of shots in my neighborhood that evening.