KANSAS CITY, Mo. — As Kansas City, Missouri, approaches its deadliest year on record, community members who live in the Oak Park neighborhood gathered on Thursday to call for a "silent night" and an end to the violence.
Pat Clarke, president of the Oak Park Neighborhood Association, said having conversations about the city's homicide trend must be done as a community.
“As you can hear, something else is going on in the Black community," Clarke said at the event Thursday night. “We stand together tonight because lives are being taken.”
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Clarke has stood up for his neighborhood night after night.
"We’ve had well over 100 shots fired this week, and it's only Thursday,” he said.
Clarke and others who gathered at the event are begging for peace.
“I called it a silent night because we are looking for silence in the air," Clarke said.
The residents say it’s a division between adults that creates violence among young people.
“It ain’t all on our parents; we got to help do something too. It ain’t all up to them; we make our own decisions, and we got to face the consequences," said Rihanna Shelby, a teen who attended the event. "We gotta do what we are supposed to do, and then they’ll do what they gotta do."
What they don’t want to stay silent — their hope
“Nobody wants to take the credit for the murders happening, but we can take credit together if we stand together to make some changes," said Ossco Bolton, community advocate.
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