We've got all hands on deck for the Chiefs victory parade!

Like everyone else in Kansas City, we are elated about the Chiefs’ Super Bowl victory! We have been preparing for this possibility for quite a while and are ready to host what is likely to be the biggest celebration this city has seen since the Royals World Series win in 2015.

The victory parade is an all-hands-on-deck event for KCPD. Additionally, law enforcement agencies from around the metro area have dedicated some of their limited manpower (and womanpower!) to assist us that day. All of us at KCPD are very grateful for their assistance, and it shows what a truly cohesive metro area we have and how well we work together. This is a regional event, and it will be handled with regional resources. There will be hundreds upon hundreds of officers along the parade route and at the celebration at Union Station afterward to ensure everyone has a great time while staying safe. This will not detract from officers working the rest of the city. We are not taking away from our regular patrol division staffing allocation. Instead, we are bringing in everyone from investigative units to Academy recruits to help on the streets that day, as well as the aforementioned outside agencies.

Just as police will have to be flexible that day, so will those who will take part in the festivities. We are expecting hundreds of thousands of people to descend on a very limited area in downtown Kansas City. If you plan to attend, expect very heavy congestion, big traffic delays and huge crowds. Pack your patience. There is only so much police can do to move that many cars and people along. In a large crowd, items and people (especially children) are bound to get lost or separated. We will do everything we can to reunite people and return property to its rightful owners, but please help us by keeping a close eye on your children and keep your property secured.

Additionally, it’s February in Kansas City, so the forecast for the parade calls for cold temperatures. Please dress accordingly. As always, public alcohol consumption also is prohibited.

We can’t wait to celebrate this historic day with you, Kansas City. Thank you for your assistance, and thank you to the Kansas City Chiefs for making this momentous day possible in our community!

Send comments to kcpdchiefblog@kcpd.org

Secure guns, protect children

It is so easy to keep a firearm out of the hands of children. And yet loaded guns keep falling into the hands of young children in our city, often with tragic consequences. Chief Darryl Forté addressed that on this blog last December. 

If you have a gun in your home, it is imperative that it is stored safely. If you do not have a safe in which to keep your firearm, you can get a free gun lock with no questions asked at any of our six patrol stations, Children’s Mercy Hospital, from anti-crime groups and at a number of other locations. Our officers have even passed these out in areas where children have been shot accidentally. These locks can be installed in less than 15 seconds, as demonstrated by Captain Ryan Mills for KSHB reporter Sarah Plake.

Putting a lock on a gun is THIS easy. @41actionnews pic.twitter.com/xNMQIa75SG

— Sarah Plake (@SarahPlakeTV) June 26, 2017

Gun locks are just a start. Adults should not leave guns lying around in areas accessible to children. They should sit down with their kids to discuss firearm safety and the dangers guns can pose. Every officer on this department has undergone extensive and continuous firearm safety training. I’d wager all of them who have children at home have gone to great lengths to store their guns securely and have had discussions about gun safety. I know I did when my kids were younger.

And as we come up on the Fourth of July holiday, the members of the Kansas City Missouri Police Department and I implore you to refrain from celebratory gunfire. Bullets fired into the air come down, damaging property and injuring or killing people. As you saw on the aforementioned blog from Chief Forté, a 16-year-old was struck by celebratory gunfire last July 4th. And this year, the parents of Blair Shanahan Lane, an 11-year-old girl killed by celebratory gunfire in 2011, are once again going door-to-door with our officers in neighborhoods where our ShotSpotter system detected high levels of gunfire on Independence Day last year. Blair’s parents will tell their story of loss and how easily the tragedy could have been prevented. In the neighborhoods they visited in 2016, July 4th gunfire dropped by 100 percent from the same day in 2015, according to ShotSpotter.

There are many shootings that are difficult to predict and prevent. Accidental shootings by and of children are not. Very simple steps will stop the vast majority of these tragedies.

Send comments to kcpdchiefblog@kcpd.org. 

Gun safety training can prevent deaths and injuries in 2017

A change in state law will go into effect on Jan. 1 that will have a large impact on firearms possession in Missouri. This was a law I opposed in the 2016 legislative session, but now that it has become a reality, the best we can do is urge people to please be safe.

Senate Bill 656 eliminated the need for anyone age 19 or older to secure a permit to acquire and carry a firearm, among other provisions. Previous concealed carry laws required those seeking to carry a firearm to complete a training course that teaches gun owners how to safely and responsibly carry, shoot and store firearms. That is a very reasonable and appropriate step for possessing a deadly weapon. Our own officers spend months in the Police Academy learning how to properly handle a gun and then get updated firearms training twice annually.

We heavily encourage gun owners to continue to seek professional training on the proper care, handling and storage of a firearm. Although it no longer is mandated, it is essential to the safety of you, your family and anyone who comes into your home. We see far too often what happens when guns are handled and stored improperly.

I’d like you to consider just these 2016 cases in which our most vulnerable residents, children, were killed or hurt in Kansas City because of guns that were not stored or handled safely. Some you may have heard about in the news, and some you haven’t:

· On April 27, an 18-month-old found her father’s unsecured and loaded handgun and shot herself to death while her father slept. The father is charged with then trying to hide the gun.

· On July 30, another 18-month-old showed up at a local hospital with a gunshot wound through his calf. Family stated a man came over to show the baby’s father a gun, and in the course of doing so, it went off and shot the child. The victim survived.

· On October 27, a 5-year-old used a foot stool to climb onto a kitchen counter. He reached into a kitchen cabinet, found a loaded gun and accidentally shot and killed his 3-year-old brother.

· On November 6, a man said he was cleaning his handgun with his 12-month-old next to him when the loaded gun went off. The bullet went through his arm and struck his infant daughter in the back. She survived but sustained critical injuries to her pelvis and spine.

· On November 12, a woman who was 6 months pregnant, her boyfriend, her sister and her 1-year-old niece were “play fighting” in a bedroom of their home when the boyfriend retrieved a gun as part of the play fight. The pregnant woman said the gun usually was unloaded, so she wasn’t concerned. But this time it was loaded, and it went off, striking the pregnant woman in the groin. She suffered from the injury, but the unborn child was not harmed.

· On November 29, two 15-year-old boys got together to play a game of basketball. One wanted to show the other a gun he had somehow acquired. The first boy took out the magazine to show the second the bullets. After he put the magazine back in, he said he intended to pretend to fire the gun. The gun actually did fire, striking the boy’s friend in the face. The boy with the gun immediately started apologizing. The victim survived. 

Proper firearms training and storage likely could have prevented every one of those incidents. Those are just some examples this year from Kansas City. In the first half of 2016, a child died every other day in America because of accidental gunfire, according to research by USA Today and the Associated Press. The 2014 report, Innocents Lost, found that 70 percent of unintentional child gun deaths could have been prevented by proper storage alone. A total of 61 percent of the deaths occurred in the victim’s home, 10 percent at a relative’s home and 10 percent at a friend’s home. That’s why it is important for every single person who owns a firearm to obtain training to know how to use, handle and store it.

The KCPD and many other local organizations also distribute free gunlocks. Call any of our patrol stations, and we will help you find one if you need it.

One other case in which a child was hurt by unintended gunfire this year happened on the Fourth of July. A 16-year-old boy was outside his home lighting fireworks with friends when he thought a firework had struck him in the shoulder. When the burning pain didn’t stop, he realized he’d been shot. An emergency room doctor determined the bullet’s trajectory; it had come from the sky above the boy and headed straight down. The teen had been hit by celebratory gunfire.

Shooting guns off in the air is dangerous and illegal, and we see a lot of it on New Year’s Eve. Endangering the lives and property of your neighbors is no way to celebrate. The reality is that any bullet discharged from a gun, even into the sky, must land somewhere, and when it does, there’s significant risk of injury or death. Celebratory gunfire killed an 11-year-old Kansas City girl on July 4th five years ago, and it hurt a 16-year-old boy this year. The family of the 11-year-old girl went door to door with our officers this year in the days leading up to the 4th of July to visit houses where our Shot Spotter gunshot detection system determined there had been celebratory Independence Day gunfire the previous year. They pleaded with residents in the area not to shoot off guns and make any other family suffer what theirs has had to go through.

A few other gun safety issues as we enter the New Year that I wanted to address in our efforts to make Kansas City as safe as possible: If you own a gun, it is very important that you record its serial number and keep that number in a safe place. And although it is not required by law, (legislation has been pre-filed in the Missouri General Assembly that could mandate it, however) always report if your gun has been stolen. If your gun is stolen, reporting it helps police track down where it’s been and who has been using it (and having the serial number makes this much easier). Stolen guns are used in a host of violent crimes in Kansas City. We recover shell casings at every shooting scene and work tirelessly to match them back to guns. Being able to establish a chain of custody of those crime guns is imperative to solving cases and preventing future gun violence.

The Kansas City Missouri Police Department works hard to prevent shootings in our city, and we need everyone’s help to do it in 2017.

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Send comments to kcpdchiefblog@kcpd.org. 

Trend of violence against children is very disturbing

We have had a very disturbing trend of violence against children in the Kansas City metro area lately. These children are among the most vulnerable of our community, and it is everyone's duty to do keep them from harm and to bring about justice for those who have harmed children. Staying silent when a child has been injured or killed is inexcusable cowardice. Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker has noted this tragic string of violent acts against children in the metro area. She issued a press release this weekend that I wanted to share with you. Several of these cases, like the murder of 14-year-old Alexis Kane and 3-year-old Damiah White and her mother, remain unsolved. Please do the right thing and call the TIPS Hotline if you have any information at 816-474-TIPS (8477).

Disturbing trend of child abuse and death

We have recently seen in our Metro area an alarming and disturbing trend of our children falling prey to horrendous acts of violence, Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said in a prepared statement released today.

These children are an integral part of our community and they are defenseless, innocent and easily injured, Baker continued. Our children have been shot, beaten, burned and abused. Our metro area should not be a dangerous or perilous place for children to reside.

It is our community’s duty to protect them, to look after them. We must secure our weapons, never strike them when angry, get immediate medical care when they are injured, and report, report, report any suspicion of child abuse or neglect. When kids are abused, neglected, in danger, shot, beaten, burned or abused, we should not walk to the police station to help; we should run for help.

Failing to protect these children is society’s greatest failing. We must do better.

What follows is just a partial list of the many recent cases in which child have become victims of violence or neglect:

- Friday, January 16: a 2-year old child is shot inside his south KC home

- Sunday, January 11: 7-year old seriously injured after being struck by gunfire on I-70

- Sunday, January 11: 14-year-old Alexis Kane, was found dead outside a South KC Water Park.

- Friday, January 9: 2-year-old Lorenzo Estrada was beaten and died of his injuries on January 10.

- Thursday, January 8: 7-month-old, J.S., was discovered with burns from injuries occurring earlier in December.

- Wednesday, January 7: 3-year-old T.D. shot inside her KCMO home at 38th and Chestnut.

- Sunday, January 4: 7-month-old Jaquail Mansaw killed inside a KCK home.

- Friday, December 26: 4-year-old boy was struck by gunfire as his home on Hardesty was fired upon.

- Friday, December 12: 2-year-old K.G.K., from Independence, sustained burns.

- Sunday, October 26: 10-year-old Machole Stewart killed inside a KCK home.

- Friday, October 17: 6-year-old Angel Hooper killed outside a South KC gas station.

In addition, we remember 10-year-old Kavyea Curry who was paralyzed from a shooting that also killed his father on Friday, April 19, 2014. A 5-year-old was also in the car. And we remember Damiah White, just 3, who was found murdered in her home during on Friday, August 23, 2013. Her and her mother’s murder remains unsolved. We await your call. There is no statute of limitations on murder.