Killings in KCK worry residents / LJWorld.com

Archive for Saturday, July 4, 2009

By Andale Gross - Associated Press Writer

July 4, 2009

Kansas City, Kan. — Bullet holes dot the front of a house where a 7-year-old girl was killed in a drive-by shooting, and flowers and candles line a street corner two miles away where a 15-year-old boy was gunned down days later.

The scenes are grim reminders of a deadly week that began June 22 and left nine people slain here.

“It’s on a downward spiral, and it ain’t going to get no better,” said Edward Harris, 47, who lives near where the girl was killed.

Harris and others see the killing spurt as just the latest wave of violence in a city that’s grappled with crime for years. But police say violent crime has actually been steadily declining and that the slayings are not a true picture of overall crime in the community of 142,000.

“Of course we’re very concerned about each and every one of these homicides, especially the volume of having nine in about seven days,” Deputy Police Chief Rick Armstrong said. “But if you look at this closely from a perspective of the last 10 years, our numbers have been low, and we think this is an anomaly.”

On June 22, four people were found shot to death in a remote neighborhood on the city’s outskirts, including a 3-year-old girl whose body was in the front yard. Adrian Burks, 37, was arrested the next day and faces four counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of the child, Juanita D. Castleberry-Bess; her 41-year-old mother, Peggy Castleberry; the homeowner, James Warren, 66; and Amanda Remmers, 21.

Prosecutors said Burks knew one of the victims well.

On June 26, shots struck a house in the northeast part of the city, killing 7-year-old Laraya Wilson and wounding five others. The attack is unsolved.

That day, a clerk at a convenience store in the area fatally shot a man who police say tried to rob the business.

The next day, 32-year-old Tyrus Johnson was fatally shot outside a motorcycle club on the northeast side, and a police officer in the same section of the city fatally shot 39-year-old Christopher Utter after police say he tried to run the officer over during a traffic stop.

The last of the killings occurred June 29 when 15-year-old Edgar Carmona was killed on the street in a drive-by shooting, also on the northeast side.

The Johnson and Carmona slayings haven’t been solved.

With the nine killings, the city’s death toll is at 22, compared to just 14 killings this time last year. But even with the sudden spike, the violence is not on pace to be the most Kansas City, Kan., has seen this decade — there were 65 killings in 2001.