KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Mary Camper has seen what violent crime can do to a neighborhood.
“I’ve seen so much death — two boys laying around, people laying around, children laying around, dying every day,” said Camper, a mother and teacher. “Am I safe in my home? Are my children safe?”
Camper is not alone in her worries about deadly violence becoming too common in Kansas City.
“You hear that all the time and you’re like, 'Man. Oh, it’s just another murder,'" said Erica Wright, a mother who believes no death should feel insignificant.
Annette Lantz-Simmons with the Center for Conflict Resolution says the inability to deal with conflict leads to most incidents of violent crime.
“They stop thinking in the midst of something and go right to the reaction,” she said.
In an effort to curb violence and save lives, Lantz-Simmons is working to help promote non-violent solutions like anger management and conflict training.
"People are capable of taking a breath, slowing down and doing something different and making a different choice in that,” Lantz- Simmons said.
As summer quickly approaches, Lantz-Simmons says she and other anti-violence groups are focusing on how to keep kids safe.
“During the summer, to keep kids engaged, even having a job throughout that,” she said. “Just continuing to work in neighborhoods, neighborhood associations and with families who are having conflict that can easily escalate to violence. We can become hopeless or get up and do what we know to do, so that’s what we are trying to do is our little piece of it.”
In the last five months, Kansas City has seen over 70 homicides.
“We have to make a change in our lives, a change in our families, a change in our community and a change in the churches,” Mary Camper said.
