Friends say 83-year-old Jimmy Townsend was killed near his home on Prospect Avenue this weekend.
Townsend owned the historic Green Duck Lounge just a few blocks away.
Three weeks before, the Kansas City Police Department opened the brand new East Patrol station named after Leon Jordan.
Jordan was shot and killed outside the historic lounge, which he has owned since 1970.
Sunday evening, community activist Pat Clarke, standing outside the building said, “[Townsend] was probably as historic around here as the building he was in.”
Clarke continued, “There's a lot of history behind it because before there was Jimmy Townsend, there was Leon Jordan. It's so sad that this type of thing happened again.”
Jordan became the first African-American Lieutenant in the Kansas City Police Department.
The Green Duck Lounge served as the home of Freedom, Inc., an association dedicated to the struggle for Civil Rights.
Despite being briefly shut down in 2011, Clarke said Townsend helped turn the lounge around.
“He did a good job of getting it done. There were things that he needed to take care of and apparently he took care of it because the doors opened back up,” said Clarke.
With the help of Townsend, three months ago the city placed the building on the Kansas City Register of Historic Places.
“A person over 80 years old, they're supposed to die from natural causes, not from someone causing them to die,” Clarke remarked.
Police are investigating what led up to Townsend’s death.
-----
Shannon Halligan can be reached at shannon.halligan@kshb.com.
