KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City, Missouri, Mayor Quinton Lucas announced a new crime prevention plan for the city live on 41 Action News Tuesday morning.
The announcement comes as Kansas City nears its deadliest year for homicides.
The plan includes four pillars: prevention, intervention, enforcement and administrative reform, according to Lucas.
Some of the items the mayor's office plans to target are better lit neighborhoods, connecting with at-risk individuals, a higher crime clearance rate and stripping the city code of discriminatory policies.
"We can never get used to an unconscionably high rate of violent crime and homicides in our city," Lucas said. "This is just going to be another sign that we will not and that we will keep fighting it along the way."
Mayor Lucas, KCPD Chief Richard Smith and Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker will go into further detail about the plan on Wednesday.
When asked about how potential budget cuts to city departments due to COVID-19 play into the plan, Lucas made it clear that cuts won't affect how the city handles crime.
He vehemently shut down the idea floated that KCPD could lose 400 personnel in budget cuts.
The mayor's office did say that there will be a large community component to the plan. City leaders will start going on walks around neighborhoods with their residents on Thursday to hear more about what they need to deter crime.
"You keep talking to them, you keep working with them," Lucas said of involving the community and building public trust. "You may think certain things about the police department, you may think certain things about the mayor and the prosecutor's office. We're here to work with you. We're here to talk with you. We're here to make sure that your community is safer."
The plan is a culmination of nearly 12 months of work with KCPD, the Jackson County Prosecutor's Office, the Kansas City Health Department, community organizations and federal law enforcement, according to the mayor's office.
