2023 KCMO Election

[FangKC]

look at how the murder rate declined while the big scary "feds" were in town.

I was skeptical but it's true

https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdmo/pr/op ... r-suspects

Down 22%

Maybe this shows a need to reallocate resources. It validates the idea of taking cops off of jobs that social workers could do so they can focus on violent crime.

No, it validates the idea that actually taking actions to investigate crime, arrest criminals, and prosecute said criminals is THE greatest way to curb crime... instead of tasking your PD to standby silently and pretend that no crimes are occurring while they're out filling politically driven speed ticket quotas. When criminals are locked up, instead of left roaming the streets, then crime drops. It's common sense.

The biggest difference between the United States and Europe is that in Europe cops are rarely seen out roaming for traffic offenders. They're ALL at the station running investigations, responding to crime, and hauling in criminals.

Another reason not to cut the e-tax. A replacement revenue source will be traffic and parking tickets and fining poor people for drooping gutters and chipped paint.

[DColeKC]

I'm a fan of having more social workers handle certain situations, but I don't know that means freeing up more cops because most of the time, you'd want to have a cop with the social worker for safety. If we simply fixed the homeless situation in this country, we would free up thousands of hours of police officers time.

I don't know about most of the time. Does some potential bridge-jumper really need to be confronted by a massive onslaught of lights and sirens? I am happy to admit that I haven't done any research on this and I am completely talking out of my ass, but I have a strong suspicion that the vast majority of police interactions with the public do not require armed intervention, and the reason they get armed intervention (by which I mean, they are confronted by a cop with a gun; not necessarily that violence is actually used on either side) is because 1) police are the ones responding, which is no fault of their own, and 2) police tend to view all interactions, regardless of the evidence at hand or the normal social cues one might otherwise consider, as being life-threatening to them, which is. Seems to me that #2 is a part the problem. I get why, but maybe it's bullshit. Nobody else does their job that way. Nobody flies a plane like the crash is inevitable and coming any second. Just because something happens in a tiny percent of your job description does not justify treating every time you do your job like the worst-case scenario.

Just a thought.

I get what you’re saying but we all know how it would go down. The first time a social worker is dispatched to a situation that seems non-violent and is killed, all hell breaks loose. Often times these social workers would be going into dangerous situations or areas. Once you give them a gun, it defeats the purpose of not sending cops.

[mean]

I agree, if your definition of all hell breaking loose is Fox News hosts losing their minds over it because the victim wasn't instead armed and ready to shoot anyone who didn't comply with their every paranoid whim.

[DColeKC]

I agree, if your definition of all hell breaking loose is Fox News hosts losing their minds over it because the victim wasn't instead armed and ready to shoot anyone who didn't comply with their every paranoid whim.

I mean public opinions when I say all hell breaks loose. If social workers start getting hurt or killed once they start handling more calls that the police normally would handle, the entire idea gets blown up.

[FangKC]

I doubt it would ever be a social worker alone. Instead of sending two police officers, or four, send one police officer and one social worker.

The other issue here is training and experience. A social worker hopefully would be more highly-trained with de-escalating situations. Police officers are often woefully under-trained in this area.

The other issue is scope-of-crime. There are some situations that don't really call for several police officers, or even two. Police get called out for a lot of family disputes that are essentially a couple of people screaming at each other, and disturbing neighbors' peace, or playing loud music late at night.

[normalthings]

Someone’s being campaigning in STL a bit recently. Don’t recall them doing any campaign events here for the critically important E-Tax.

[Chris Stritzel]

Someone’s being campaigning in STL a bit recently. Don’t recall them doing any campaign events here for the critically important E-Tax.

In St. Louis, all the Aldermen (28+President), Mayor (Krewson), Mayor candidates (Jones and Spencer), Collector of Revenue (Daly) and other elected officials have been campaigning hard for Proposition E, which is the Earnings Tax. Out of all of them, Greg Daly has been out and about hanging door hangers that say to vote yes on Prop E. It makes up a third of the budget. I'm not really up to speed on the KC version, but if the Mayor and others are pushing for it, then that's campaigning in a way.

[FangKC]

Kansas City voters renew the earnings tax.

https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/k ... rnings-tax