‘I will never give up’: Mayor Lucas vows to push gun safety after 4 kids shot in two-week span
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KANSAS CITY, Missouri (KCTV) — Wednesday afternoon, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas spoke resolutely against violence in Kansas City, after four kids were shot in KC over a two-week span.
“I will never give up on trying to fight gun violence,” Lucas said.
On Tuesday, Lucas met with the city’s Police Chief and Board of Commissioners. Lucas hopes some changes to KCPD will stop the violence.
“We have increased police salaries by 30%. The goal is we need to hire more officers. We need to be able to solve more crime,” Lucas said Wednesday. “I know there may be some watching and saying, ‘How is this plan different from the last one?’ You know what? We are going to keep trying ‘til the day we don’t have this unconsciously high number of murders and shootings in our city.”
This year, Kansas City has seen seven children under the age of 18 die in homicides. The city has also found four children to be suspects in homicides, as gun violence trickles down to the kids in Kansas City.
“It’s hard because with children not only do you lose who they are now, but you also lose who they could be. It’s a gut punch,” said Branden Mims, the Chief Operating Officer of the Ad Hoc Group Against Crime.
“Kids should not be being killed,” said Judy Sherry. “Firearms are lethal, and people need to treat them as such.”
Kansas City is coming off its deadliest year on record with 182 homicides in 2023. So far, there have been 44 in 2024.
“People talk a lot. The issue is, ‘When are you really going to take action?’”
Now, Kansas City is trying to find a way to solve a complex problem. Mayor Lucas says the city will keep fighting to keep kids safe.
“There are a lot of people who say, ‘The numbers remain challenging,’ and they do,” Lucas said. “We’re going to keep fighting. We’re going to keep investing in officers, in prevention, in schools, in everything we can to make sure that we are not burying children in our city.”
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