Representatives from Missouri’s largest cities convene in Columbia to address violence
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Columbia Mayor Brian Treece will hosted a meeting at City Hall on Friday with mayors and staff representing four of Missouri’s largest cities: Columbia, Kansas City, Springfield and St. Louis.
The summit focused on progressing the conversation about how to make Missouri's communities safer. Mayor Treece said their 3 main priorities are witness security, mental health and substance abuse, and keeping firearms out of the hands of children and violent offenders.
Dr. Tashel Bordere, an assistant professor at the University of Missouri said, "I think that the mayors are taking a promising step forward - we need our youth, we need black youth, the people most impacted by this to be present at these meetings to be sitting next to the mayor."
Columbia has experienced a high homicide rate this year compared to years past,with 10 shooting deaths so far in 2019.
"All the challenges of our cities may be different, we know that um now more than ever, its important that we're united on common sense strategies to work together to solve the violent crime in the state of Missouri," Mayor Treece said.
St. Louis has seen 165 homicides so far this year compared, to 168 through all of 2018, according to numbers the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department released Thursday.
Lyda Krewson, the Mayor of St. Louis said, "Missouri has been leading the headlines with increases in violent crimes and our largest cities have all ranked way too high in the rankings and so we are attempting to come together and find those subjects where we believe we might be able to have impact with the legislature for the health and the welfare of the people ."
The attached flyer is for the webcast on Nov. 8th in which Dr. Bordere will be presenting on Working with Youth coping with Trauma and Homicide Loss through the National Alliance for Grieving Children.
Stay with ABC 17 News for more information on this developing story.
