KANSAS CITY, Mo. — As municipalities around the country explore defunding local police departments, there's a group of citizens proactively addressing the quality of life in downtown Kansas City, Missouri.
The small things Carlos Bryon does make a big impact in the heart of Kansas City.
"Anything that is out here in the open that shouldn't be out of here in the openness, not beautifying our city, I throw it away," Bryon said.
Byron is one of 55 "Community Ambassadors," who help keep the downtown corridor clean and safe.
"Some of the people, they're like, ‘You’re police; you think you’re police,’" Byron said. "They think we’re police. We're not police."
Rather the Community Ambassadors are uniformed men and women equipped with radios, handcuffs and pepper spray who work to make downtown a better place to live.
"I've not used my pepper spray in the 17 years I've been here, so just all about conversation," Ronell Bailey, a safety supervisor, said.
Bailey said those who live and work in the area depend on the so-called "Bumblebees."
"It saves the (police department) to do the more serious things — helping solve homicides, helping to solve just different things, car thefts and things of that nature," Bailey said.
Ultimately, Community Ambassadors do call the police if there's an issue too dangerous for a staff member to handle.
"We responded to a lady who spit in another lady's face down in this park that we're in today and tipped over all our tables and chairs," Bailey said. "That lady wanted to press charges, so we got PD."
Dan Walsh, the managing partner of Spokes Coffee, Cafe and Cyclery, highlighted the work of the ambassadors in a Facebook post that been shared more than 1,000 times. He views the Community Ambassadors as an alternative model for community policing.
"First of all, they don't show up with guns, right?" Walsh said. "They show up with walkie-talkies. Second of all, they normally know the person, because they're very familiar with all the trouble spots downtown to the folks that are around there."
KCPD said their partnership with the Downtown Community Improvement District, which funds and oversees the Community Ambassdors, is one several around the city that helps develop better relationships to reduce crime and enhance safety.
"The Downtown CID is just one of those great partners," Sgt. Jake Becchina wrote in a statement. "Independence Ave, Truman Rd, and MainCor (now known as Midtown KC Now), Brookside, Waldo, Martin City are some of the other great CID’s we work with as well. We have long partnered with them to be our eyes and ears in areas of the city and help with 'quality of life' issues that are less police focused."
Ambassadors work in the downtown area seven days a week.
"I think there’s always going to be a need for us to provide the soft services that we do to help take care of some of the quality-of-life issues that they're dealing with so they can deal with bigger issues," Sean O’Byrne, executive director of the Downtown Community Improvement District, said.
