Westport Plaza Assaults

Discuss items in the urban core outside of Downtown as described above. Everything in the core including the east side (18th & Vine area), Northeast, Plaza, Westport, Brookside, Valentine, Waldo, 39th street, & the entire midtown area.
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KCMatt
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Westport Plaza Assaults

Post by KCMatt »

Was approached by two armed men on Monday as I waited to get into freinds apartment on north side of plaza. Their intention was to get me inside the building before they robbed me so nowone could see. They were hiding behind a rock wall across the street. Just wanted to alert Westport/Plaza-46th street residents that the gang that is doing this are also trying to follow people into their apartments. The paper stated that they were only coming up to people on sidewalks and parking lots. Whats amusing is that my girlfriend scared the two off, but they robbed another man behind the building at gunpoint 5 minutes later.

What do you think can be done to re-insure safety between Westport and the Plaza.
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Westport Plaza Assaults

Post by KCPowercat »

damn, that sucks...I can't believe I haven't started this topic already.

It is a little unnerving being around the Plaza right now.....5 guys with guns are not fun.

Did you get a good description of the guys? That's what the police need to catch these fools....if you did, call the tips hotline and give them a description.

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Westport Plaza Assaults

Post by KCMatt »

I already called tips but could give them little more then they already knew.
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Westport Plaza Assaults

Post by KCPowercat »

hopefully they are caught soon....Westport especially but our area of the city already has enough black eyes
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Westport Plaza Assaults

Post by QueSi2Opie »

Jus' gives those suburbanites another reason to avoid the city...even though $hit like this happens in suburbia too.
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Westport Plaza Assaults

Post by KCgridlock »

Those people will go down in a hurry unless they quit doing it, I'm sure KCPD already has undercover people in the area and the word about them is getting out.

You guys read Yael's column yesterday, He was robbed in the same area recently.
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Westport Plaza Assaults

Post by KCgridlock »

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/4903060.htm

My personal brush with crime
By YAEL T. ABOUHALKAH
The Kansas City Star

The gun pointed straight at my left ribs. So I didn't waste time arguing when the young robber demanded all my cash.

"I'm starting to count down!" he barked, urging me to dig bills out of my wallet. "Ten, nine, eight ..."

I handed over all my money. Five feet away, other robbers took cash and keys from my best friend, who was visiting from Seattle. Two guns were pointed at her.

And, even with a gun pointed at me for the first time in my 47 years on Earth, I noticed how calm I felt. I wasn't even thinking about fighting back. I hoped my friend wasn't either.

"There's got to be more," one robber said. He again started a countdown. It was suddenly scarier.

"That's all there is," I said firmly, showing him my wallet's empty side.

Sixty seconds or so and it was over.

The robbers turned and casually started walking south in the 4500 block of Jefferson Street, toward the Country Club Plaza.

Shaken, we headed the other way out of her old neighborhood, toward Westport and a hotel phone and a visit with the police.

We learned that night, Dec. 30, that we had become two more victims in a string of recent robberies in midtown Kansas City.

I'm a longtime booster of Kansas City, especially its core. That's unchanged.

Here's what the holdup made me think about crime and Kansas City.

The robbery: I wasn't much help as a witness, as Kansas City Police Sgt. Joe Wellington pointed out. I looked at the gun and little else.

If a crime occurs, Wellington advised, look for anything that would help identify criminals later. These include scars, distinctive clothing and jewelry.

I did do one thing right. Cooperating usually makes the crime go more quickly and smoothly.

The statistics: It's cold comfort to me and other recent robbery victims, but look at the facts: Robberies in Kansas City have plummeted.

In 1991, victims reported 4,955 robberies. That number was just 1,945 last year, a stunning decline of 60 percent.

There's more. Murders are at a 30-year low. Other violent crimes are going down, too. Kansas City is a much safer city than it has been in many years.

But you can still be in the wrong place at the wrong time, as I found out.

The neighborhood: A few days after the robbery, I called Hilda Gibbs, the feisty president of the Plaza-Westport Neighborhood Association.

"I'm hot under the collar," she said after hearing my news, adding that crime had not been a particular problem in her neighborhood of 41 years.

Gibbs called back later to say she's trying to organize a crime watch meeting with residents and officials from nearby St. Luke's Hospital and Highwoods Properties, owners of the Plaza.

But let's be clear: The Plaza-Westport neighborhood remains a vital, exciting, attractive place. It's convenient to downtown and the Plaza. The modest houses are affordable.

Isolated incidents can't be allowed to force people in any neighborhood with infrequent crime waves to give up on living in Kansas City.

The criminals: In my case they were five black males, from about 15 to 20 years old. One, about 6 feet, was much taller.

Police officials say it helps to have these general descriptions, along with other information such as when and where the incidents are occurring. Residents then can be more alert to what's happening around them.

Generally, the holdups have occurred after 8 p.m. and before midnight, and from 38th Street south to 47th street, and Holly Street east to Oak Street.

Yes, I know that by simply mentioning the criminals' race that suburbanites across the metropolitan area will nod knowingly, glad they moved out of -- or never moved into -- urban Kansas City.

The reality is that crime is everywhere. Purses are stolen, cars are broken into and other crimes occur in "safe" Johnson County and other suburban areas, too.

As a Kansas Citian since 1979, I've lived in four different middle-income neighborhoods in urban Kansas City. I like the variety of people in integrated neighborhoods. So do many other committed urban core dwellers.

The aftermath: A few nights after the crime, the same friend and I took another walk around the Plaza to dinner.

The robbery was still fresh in our minds. But now we could joke about the weirdly polite demeanor of one of the robbers.

"Here's your keys, ma'am," he had said, tossing them to the sidewalk.

I count my blessings. I wasn't beaten up. My friend wasn't hurt. My children weren't with me.

I was "merely" robbed, becoming just another statistic for the police to investigate.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To reach Yael T. Abouhalkah, a member of the Editorial Board, call (816) 234-4887 or send e-mail to abouhalkah@kcstar.com.
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Westport Plaza Assaults

Post by KCforumer »

That's very upsetting to hear, especially since Yael's friend visiting from Seattle was involved. I hope they get these ****ers soon.

It's good to see robberies are down overall, tho.
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Westport Plaza Assaults

Post by KCMatt »

Good News, the police caught one of the gangmembers that were robbing people in south midtown. Hopefully, they will pressure him and he will turn his friends in. The story is in todays paper.
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Westport Plaza Assaults

Post by KCMatt »

More bad news, a girl who lives in my apartment on poets corner was assaulted by 3 teenagers, one with a sawed off shot gun or long semi auto gun. The teenagers were loitering on the front steps of our building at around 10 o'clock pm. Until recently, the gang kids were staying North of 47th. She got away unharmed, but when she tried to file a report with the police, they acted like it didnt matter. This is not what I wanted to hear. Poets corner is maybe the safest area inside the core, evident by the large proportion of single women who live there. For those who may have missed the tiny blurbs in the paper, this is one of many assaults in the Plaza neighborhoods in the last 6 months. Most alarming was 3 months ago when a man was shot in the leg after running from to muggers who assaulted him on 47th and Jefferson at 10 o'clock on a Sunday morning.

This stuff needs to stop. Kansas City isnt New York and many people will not simply shrug this off, thus having a hugely negative impact on the core. Highwoods has made the commercial portion of the Plaza a fortress with its fleet of security guards and left the surrounding neighborhoods to defend themselves. Because Highwoods doesnt want a visible police presence around Plaza retail, the surrounding neighborhoods have become an easy target. In the last six months alone I have been the target of two attempted muggings in the North Plaza area and no longer walk through there at night. It wont be long until these gangs recognize the neigborhoods in the North and West of downtown and the violence spreads
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Westport Plaza Assaults

Post by mean »

This stuff needs to stop. Kansas City isnt New York and many people will not simply shrug this off
I know many people are sick of hearing it, but Kansas City's crime rate is way way way higher than New York's. I don't even think New York is in the top 10. Maybe not even the top 20.

The only easy solutions I see are:

1. More police, which we can't afford (but hey, we might have a new arena soon...that'll show the crooks!)

2. Legalize concealed weapons so if these goons approach me I can shoot their faces off.
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Westport Plaza Assaults

Post by KCMatt »

If you carry a concealed weapon and try to use it in an assault situation, you greatly increase your chance of getting shot. It provides a false sense of security. At best with a concealed weapon law lifted, both yourself and the mugger would be shot instead of just losing your wallet and it ending peacefully.

The KC NY comparison was not meant to illustrate crime rate but attitudes toward crime. In NY most people are complacent to crime, but people in KC will base decisions on a few bad incidents that have no statistical merit towards their own personal safety. You have a much greater chance of getting killed in a car wreck that you do being assaulted in the core. But as people in NY are numb to crime people in KC are complacent to the automobile but will blow muggings way out of proportion.
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Westport Plaza Assaults

Post by mean »

If you carry a concealed weapon and try to use it in an assault situation, you greatly increase your chance of getting shot.
You also greatly increase your chance of keeping your money and of stopping the "crime ring" literally dead in its tracks. That's a risk I'm happy to take, and so would many other people. Many people wouldn't, and that's cool too. The criminals wouldn't know the difference.
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Westport Plaza Assaults

Post by KCN »

If there's a group of 5 muggers, or even 2, you can try to shoot one of them but someone else will shoot you dead.

The only good thing I can consider about legalizing concealed weapons is that muggers will not be sure their victim is unamred. It may make them less likely to approach someone at random.

Funny this crime topic comes up the day after my car was broken into and my stereo stolen. Yup it happens in small towns in Texas too.
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Westport Plaza Assaults

Post by QueSi2Opie »

Don't know if this is fact or not, heard this at work and haven't researched it yet. But didn't the latest statistics show that St. Louis was the most dangerous city to live in and KC was ranked fourth? Sounds like a problem that the state of Missouri needs to deal with and not something to blame solely on city leaders and their decisions to build a downtown arena so we can compete with Oklahoma City for shows/concerts.
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Westport Plaza Assaults

Post by trailerkid »

Honestly, I really don't see KC as that dangerous. Of course there's many places you wouldn't feel comfortable walking alone, but that's true in almost any city over 75,000.

Here's the list of the most dangerous cities as reported in Dec. of '02:
1. St. Louis
2. Detroit
3. Gary, Ind.
4. Baltimore

Six basic crime categories: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and motor vehicle theft. All cities of 75,000 or more populations that reported crime data to the FBI for the six crime categories were included in the rankings.
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Westport Plaza Assaults

Post by KCMatt »

statistics aside, the fact is gang kids have found an easy target in the neighborhoods surrounding the plaza and have exploited it all winter to the present. As the weather gets better this will only increase unless something is done.

Fox 4 did a report from westport last week stating how increased police force in Westport has led to a big drop in crime in the area. This may be true, but in reality the crime didnt stop, it simply moved. The increase in crime in the Plaza residential areas may be attributed to centralizing police force in Westport, pushing crime outward into neighborhoods
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Westport Plaza Assaults

Post by mean »

If there's a group of 5 muggers, or even 2, you can try to shoot one of them but someone else will shoot you dead.
It has been my experience that once somebody actually starts shooting, people start running like hell. There might a street thug with nerve enough to point and shoot after seeing a buddy or two go down, but I'd be willing to bet my life that there aren't very many.
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