Constant crime pushing some Kansas City stores to brink of closing

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Councilmembers in Kansas City’s Third District say some businesses on the east side are on the brink of closing, and a rise in thefts and violent crime are to blame.

Police say shoplifting and shootings have plagued the Linwood Square Shopping Center at 31 ^st and Prospect since it opened back in 2018, but now the situation has escalated to the point of stores like Sun Fresh potentially closing its doors.

“You gotta realize what you’re causing for companies like this to close. Your grandparents are suffering, your aunts, your uncles. We can no longer come here because of the violence,” resident Jim Zamora said at an event on Tuesday.

According to KCPD, there have been 106 homicides so far in Kansas City in 2024. More than 50% of their calls come from East Patrol. Councilmembers Melissa Robinson and Melissa Patterson Hazley say the crime is now pushing stores in the shopping center to the brink.

“We’re here today because the city has invested millions of dollars into this corridor, into this grocery store,” Robinson said.

“We’re here to protect that investment, but we’re here to protect people’s food, protect people’s grocery, protect the businesses, the workers, the customers, to ensure that this corridor continues to remain a viable, vital, and vibrant economic engine for the third district.”

The councilmembers are proposing a plan that would deploy trained community outreach workers into areas with high crime rates. They also want to invest more in youth services like the KC Futures Commission, a detention center, and provide more help for mental health and substance abuse, which they say are root causes for the violence.

“You’re talking to someone that first of all started his career here with Mr. Maxwell and now has been screaming for over a year for change. So, I’m not going to immediately say that it’s all hunky dory, but I’m optimistic and hopeful,” Emmet Pierson Jr. with the Community Builders of Kansas City said.

The city spent $15 million dollars on the Sun Fresh, and shortly after it opened, a man fired 20 shots in the store, hitting a 15-year-old employee.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports.