KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas wants Missouri Governor Mike Parson to call a special session of the Missouri Legislature to help find solutions to gun violence.
41 Action News spoke with Parson’s office Friday, who said the governor and mayor spoke by phone Thursday night about a special session.
No decision has been made on whether to call back lawmakers to Jefferson City.
NEW: Mayor Lucas calls on Governor Parson to convene a special session of the Missouri General Assembly to address violent crime.
— Mayor Quinton Lucas (@MayorLucasKC) July 3, 2020
"We are at a crisis point in Kansas City and we need state legislative action." Full letter: pic.twitter.com/PAaHLqas1B
Leaders across Jackson County are coming together to create change.
"I want you to know we're going to be there and we're going to come after you, if you wanna be involved in violence we're going to come after you as hard as we can,” Kansas City Police Chief, Rick Smith said Friday afternoon.
Chief Smith's vow came after a heartbreaking week filled with violence.
Gunfire killed a teen in Raytown and four-year-old LeGend Taliferro, who survived heart surgery, only to be killed by a bullet as he slept Monday morning.
Two Kansas City Police Officers and a RideKC bus driver were shot.
One of those officers remained in critical condition Friday night.
Now more than ever, people say they want answers.
Jackson County Sheriff Darryl Forte says the Kansas City No Violence Alliance (NOVA), started in 2012 and ended a few years later, wasn’t perfect, but it had an impact.
“We got a lot of criticism from that simply because people were saying it wasn't working but the thing about that [is] you can't measure what didn't happen so now nova has gradually gone away in the form that it was in and look at the numbers now,” Forte exclaimed. “A lot of those guys heeded our warning and they got their GED, they went through different programs, they rode the bus to jobs but nobody really talked about that."
Rosilyn Temple lost her son to gun violence nearly 10 years ago.
Since then, Temple has helped begin a Kansas City chapter of the national group, Mothers in Charge.
Temple believes the violence across the metro is in part a generational issue.
"The violence starts from home,” Temple said. "We have a problem here."
Chief Smith agreed with Temple's assessment of one reason for the violence.
"We now have kids and some people teach their kids not to talk to the police, we need to change that narrative,” said Chief Smith.
”Now is the perfect time for us to look at everything that we've been doing," Sheriff Forte said.
“If we don't get it out what is going on, to make it visible for people to know that we are losing life, it's not going to change,” Temple said.
Temple's organization has a new door-to-door program called, ‘What are we doing? Why are we so mad?"
“We wanted to talk - how can they make their neighborhood safer? What was the issues, small issues that people don't think it's a lot but it's a lot when you live in a neighborhood and you have no voice, you feel like,” Temple said.
The goal is to help people feel pride in their neighborhood.
For now, COVID-19 has stopped the new program's roll out.
Until more can be done, Temple said people need to do the right thing.
"Not coming into a neighborhood or coming home from work and someone's child body is lying in the street and you say as a person that is not my business I just wanna go home… that bothers me to my soul," she said
