Coming soon to a Neighborhood Near You.

I was in the city market / Columbus park area over the weekend. While the buildings have remained for the most part, the faces have changed. Driving through the area I was thinking of the mob wars that plagued the area back in the 70's and how the gang violence of today compared. The super abbreviated version of the battle over the River Quay goes something like this.

The River Quay area, now known as the River Market or City Market, was being touted as an entertainment district, much like the new Power and light district of today. Most of the buildings were owned or occupied by members of or people connected to KC mob figures. The long story made short is that bodies started turning up in car trunks or scattered like meat confetti from car bombs. For the most part the violence was confined to that area and John Q Citizen wasn't at much risk of getting caught up in the crossfire. Although if memory serves me correctly. one of the explosions turned a huge corner lot and brick building in to a giant soup bowl.

The face of organized crime today could not be more different. Today's gangsters don't have names ending in vowels or look like your grandfather. There are no Nick Civellas calling shots. Traditional rackets like gambling and prostitution aren't today's gangsters forte. Today its all about drugs. And the face isn't that of an overweight Italian guy in a velour sweat suit. Today's gangster is young, black or Mexican, and unlike the KC Mob of yesteryear there are a whole lot more of them.

Another big difference in Kansas City today when it comes to gang violence is the response of city officials. When those mob guys started killing each other and blowing shit up, the authorities came down hard on them. Today the police and city hall seem content to let murder and mayhem play out unchecked. Over the past decade in Kansas City, we have seen children and innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire. Without doing much digging I can recall a Hispanic toddler who was killed playing in his own living room by one of several bullets sprayed across the front of his families home. I recall a really young teenager who fired at a car going down the street hitting a child in a car seat, a young girl shot in her own driveway. And rarely a day goes by when the media doesn't report on another victim, innocent or not, who is gunned down in the city. Other than some lip service from the KCPD, the response from city hall has been to remain mute.

I hesitated to write this for several reasons. People get tired of hearing it . This wont be the first time, or the last that I have pointed out the problems and disparity that is an everyday occurrence in the inner city. My average reader is white ,middle class, and if they live in the city proper it is on the fringe or an outlying suburb. Gang violence is something that doesn't touch most of you directly, its something you see on the news. But it really should bother all of us more than it does. Here in midtown it hits a little closer to home. I can drive a few minutes east of here and be in the heart of Kansas City's new gangland. Neighborhoods of low income people are held hostage by thugs. Children are taught to drop and cover their heads at the sound of gunfire. And still the response of this city's mayor and police remains mute. But that's going to change soon.


Gang violence is starting to creep into more affluent areas. Ive got an uncle who lives in waldo. Last year, my uncle, aunt and cousin were victims of a home invasion. They pistol whipped my 77 year old uncle, breaking his jaw and terrorized them for about 30 minutes while they emptied a large gun collection from his house to his car. Turns out that the three robbers were all under 18, all gang affiliated and still on the loose today. The news crews were all over my uncles house for a couple of days. The cops recovered most of the guns, but have never followed up or made an effort to put the three punks away, despite the fact that they know who did it. Maybe they just couldn't prove the case, I don't know, I just know that my aunt only sleeps during the daylight hours.

My point to all of this is that living in the suburbs or west of troost is no longer insurance against the predatory young face of crime. These guys are spreading out through the suburbs. And that may be the catalyst that finally prompts city hall and the KCPD to do something. If they cant confine gang related crime to the poor areas of town, then maybe they will make a real effort to bring shit under control. Ignoring the problem doesn't work. In los Angeles there are over 80,000 active gang members. They are no longer confined to south central, they have fanned out, and the city cant stem the tide. While Kansas City is by no means as inundated with gangs as Los Angeles, we are well on our way to reaching the same level of problems, brought on by complacency and an "It cant happen here " attitude.


Here is the problem as I see it. Kids come up in poor areas of Kansas City and the guys they look up to are the gangstas. Our school system offers nothing. Its a joke. If an education is the only way of breaking the cycle, what chance do the children in the inner city have of breaking free? Their parents who have worked hard and played by the rules have nothing to show for it. What kind of message does that send to an impressionable kid. We are inundated with one shooting after another , it's business as usual because it happens in the disenfranchised areas of the city. When it starts occurring in the more affluent areas the city may take some real measures to do something. And we will probably find that we waited too long, we didn't address the problem soon enough, when it was happening in the black part of town. If we wait for that to happen, we are going to find ourselves in the same situation as larger cities like L A. , fighting a losing battle.