KANSAS CITY, MO — According to the KSHB 41 News Homicide Tracker, there have been over 100 homicides in Kansas City, Missouri, in 2022.
On Monday, KCPD identified the 14-year-old victim that was killed on Tuesday, Aug. 16.
Violent crime is happening all across KCMO, and whether our youth are victims involved or just surrounded by it, it has an impact.
“If you live within the Kansas City metropolitan area, then you are impacted by violence,” Damon Daniel, president of the Ad Hoc Group Against Crime, said.
Daniel said the violence continuously impacting the community is also hurting our youth.
“They are resolving conflict with violence, whereas they either learned that or seen that somewhere that’s in their household or in their community,” Daniel said.
Dr. Danielle Johnson, with the University of Kansas Health System, said the violence also impacts youth's mental health on a short and long term scale.
“So we see in children and youth, short term impacts including increased anxiety, increased agitation, concentration difficulties and difficulty relating to peer or parents,” Johnson said. "The higher the rates of heart diseases, certain types of cancer high blood pressure.”
Daniel and Johnson both said that the violence we see in youth today has a lot to do with the experiences in their household or communities.
“We tend to do what we know, and so when we are exposed to violence on an ongoing basis, we tend to replicate some of those behaviors and patterns,” Johnson said.
Daniel said those learned behaviors can lead to a generational impact on families who have to relive violence over and over again.
“One of things that we are missing in our communities, is a lot of folks are not thinking about the consequences of their actions,” Daniel said. “And how their actions will have an impact on those who love them.
Johnson and Daniel both add that in order to break that cycle, it’s important that families sit down and talk with their kids about how violence in their communities is impacting them."
“It’s important during the grief process to really normalize that their feelings are okay," Johnson said. "To normalize this is tragic and out of what we typically think of someone dying at a young age and to really be that listening ear."
Daniel agreed with Johnson.
“Parents and legal guardians, we have to be able to check in with our kids make sure that they feel safe in terms of being able to share what’s going on with them," Daniel said. "And we have to be able to understand how to have a conversation with our kids.”
—
