Brookside and Waldo residents, business owners speak on crime increase
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – With car break-ins and other crime on the rise, people who either live or work in the Brookside and Waldo neighborhoods attended a panel discussion on the matter Wednesday afternoon.
Members of the KCPD Metro Patrol, Property Crimes Unit, and the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office also attended to discuss current statistics and answer questions from frustrated residents.
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For at least 10 months, FOX4 has covered unsolved property crimes like car break-ins in the Waldo Neighborhood. It’s a big issue citywide, with police data showing more than 5,000 reports in 2022 and 2023.
“Now, it’s happening in the daytime. Usually, crime was under the cloak of darkness, now crimes are being committed in the daytime as well,” said Josephine Njoroge, who owns a small business in Brookside.
She joined 200 others at a crime panel discussion Wednesday night with nearly every person in the room having been a victim of property crime.
“For our two amazing communities, we’re kind of at our wit’s end looking for solutions,” said Sean Anderson with the Waldo Business Association as the meeting began.
The police department started by sharing crime statistics over the last five years, with crime progressively getting worse after 2021. However, technical issues prevented KCPD from providing more data or informing frustrated residents about how to research crime data.
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Part of the problem in addressing the crime, according to KCPD, is police numbers. The department said it lost roughly 25% of its force since 2021 due to retirements or people choosing to leave.
The other problem is property crimes are more difficult to solve due to lack of evidence.
“That’s not saying something negative about police. There are certain things we have to have in order to have a prosecutable case,” said Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker.
That’s why the panel recommended people invest in high-resolution cameras to capture crimes in action, that way they can help prove a suspect’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt if the case ever gets prosecuted.
KCPD also told people to always take valuables out of cars, never leave a car running when they’re not in it, and to report any suspicious activity to police.
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As for work that residents can expect to see in the near future, KCPD also said in the next six months it will work to get more officers DNA qualified to submit better evidence. Still, many do not feel that’s enough.
“We just can’t depend on the police to do the work. We as citizens also need to be involved in the solution,” added Njoroge.
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