Page 5 - 2018 Annual Report

E P L U RIB US U N U M

Board of Police Commissioners,

I am pleased to present the 2018 Annual Report of the Kansas City Missouri Police Department.
The members of KCPD worked hard in 2018 to make a significant impact on safety in our city.
The statistics contained in this report highlight that progress. Overall violent crime fell by 6
percent from the previous year (p. 31). Homicides decreased by more than 9 percent. Detectives
also markedly improved homicide clearance rates. Our percentage of homicides cleared in the
previous three years had been in the 50s. This year, investigators cleared 73 percent – or 99 –
homicides in Kansas City. That’s far above the national homicide clearance rate of 61.6 percent.
Investigative elements, Patrol and the Crime Lab put in countless hours to bring justice for the
families of those who lost their loved ones to murder.
Increased traffic enforcement also appears to have made an impact. Officers wrote over 35,000
more tickets in 2018 than in 2017, about a 30 percent increase (p. 34). Not so coincidentally,
traffic fatalities fell from a 40-year high of 99 in 2017 to 85 in 2018, a 14 percent drop.
We also added staff to increase safety, including 15 additional 911 dispatcher positions and
24 additional officer positions (p. 21). We did this to eliminate 911 hold times and decrease
officer response times.
Sometimes increased safety does not just show up in numbers but in lives changed. We
started several initiatives to engage youth and positively change their perception of police and
what they can do for the safety of their community (p. 17). We’re doing everything we can to
make Kansas City’s youth the leaders of tomorrow.
We also implemented social workers at every patrol division to address issues that are
precursors to crime – poverty, unemployment, and unsupervised youth. The social workers
have brought resources, and they are changing lives, families and entire neighborhoods for the
better.

Community Interaction Officers also work with issues that go beyond what can be solved
with a 911 call. They are the public’s liaison with the department, and in 2018, we ensured there
were two at each of our six patrol divisions. Officers dedicated to resolving community issues
have shown great success reducing crime in other major cities, so this was a step in the right
direction. I hope that you will see the progress we are making in this year’s Annual Report.

Richard C. Smith
Chief of Police

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