When Jessica Townsend drove past Brady and Fox on the last Wednesday in August, she saw police cars surrounding the beloved Irish restaurant.
She did not know, at the time, that police were responding to a shooting.
Chef Shaun Brady — a 44-year-old married father of two, a driving force behind Kansas City’s annual Irish Festival and a man remembered as “the living room where everybody came” — was shot as he was taking out the trash.
Authorities say Brady tried to intervene in a possible carjacking. Two teenage boys are in custody in connection with the shooting.
“My heart breaks for Shaun Brady,” Jessica Townsend said. “He was doing what was right. He intervened and lost his life, and it makes me scared to be able to intervene myself.”
Brady’s death struck a nerve with Kansas City residents who have watched property crimes like car burglaries spike this year, and worried that they could turn deadly.
At a public meeting hosted by the city council two weeks later, some residents said officials need to crack down harder on people committing crimes, and others cautioned against relying on harsher punishment as a solution and demanded that the city invest more in programs that tackle the root causes of crime.
‘Makes us all a little paranoid’
In May, Jessica’s husband Ryan Townsend opened their garage door to find their car missing.
The theft brought a cascade of problems, some immediate and others long-term: How will they get their three daughters to daycare on time? Where is the car? Will they have to buy a new one?
“Knowing that there had been multiple break-ins and car thefts already, it was shocking,” Jessica said. “We live on a prominent street. Our house is far back from the street, comparatively, to several of our Brookside neighbors, and they walked all the way up. It was very much violating to walk out and (have) it be gone.”
The couple reported the car theft to the police. They said the KCPD found their car, a Volvo, about two weeks later, in Kansas City’s Northland. Jessica said KCPD told her that the car was in “good condition.”
Once the car was towed to a Volkswagen dealership, the Townsends got a different report: their car was unsalvageable. They were told someone had shot into one of the headlights.
After months of paperwork and insurance, the Townsends were able to purchase a new car. But the theft, and similar break-ins in their neighborhood, have made them more vigilant.
“We feel like we live in the safest neighborhood in Kansas City, which is maybe an exaggeration, but it's at least pretty close,” Ryan said. “So knowing that, oh, a major theft is going to happen two feet outside of our house, makes us all a little paranoid.”
What does the data show?
Property crimes in Kansas City increased by 31% from 2019 to 2023.
Car thefts in particular have seen one of the sharpest spikes, jumping by 138% between 2019 and 2023. From 2022 to 2023 alone, car thefts increased by 49%.
This year, the KCPD has received an average of 654 car theft reports each month. July saw more than 900 reported car thefts — the highest number so far this year.
Nationally, there was a 59% decrease in the U.S. property crime rate between 1993 and 2022. Burglary, theft and motor vehicle theft saw the largest declines.
Despite this long-term trend, certain property crimes like car thefts have been ticking upward in recent years. According to the Council on Criminal Justice, motor vehicle thefts increased by 105% between 2019 and 2023.
Capt. Rob Schreiber, with the Kansas City Police Department's property crimes unit, partially attributes the spike to how easy it has become to steal Kias and Hyundais.
"They're very easy to break into, very easy to steal. Quite a bit of social media videos telling you how to do that," he told KCUR's Up To Date.
Reports of violent crime, or what the KCPD calls crimes against persons, are slightly higher than last year. The number of homicides is trending down following a record-high last year, but the KCPD says aggravated assaults are trending up. The KCPD attributes this to people who are shot, oftentimes by a stray bullet, and survive.
Break-ins hurting local businesses
Wooden boards replaced windows at several local businesses this summer — signs of a break-in and, in some cases, theft after business hours.
Preston Thomas, general manager at Bay Boy Specialty Sandwiches in the West Plaza, said burglars broke into the building it shares with Chingu Coffee through a window on a Sunday night in late August, when both businesses were closed. Security camera footage showed the intruders rummaging through Bay Boy’s office, but not taking anything.
Burglars also broke into Johnny Jo’s Pizzeria next door on the same night. Thomas said it’s disheartening to see small businesses get hit.
“I feel like people pick local businesses as a target because they feel like either they're more likely to get away with it, or like they're less equipped to track these sort of things,” Thomas said.
Mayor Quinton Lucas this week introduced a “Back to Business Fund” to provide financial relief to small businesses impacted by property crimes. The $325,000 program will provide grants of up to $3,000 for local businesses to recover from a break-in, and $5,000 for businesses to pay for increased security measures.
The city has also purchased three tower cameras to act as a deterrent in commercial and entertainment districts, including the Country Club Plaza and the Crossroads.
“People see this camera, this tower camera, flashing blue lights all over it and they think, this is maybe not somewhere that I’m going to do the things that shouldn’t be done,” said Kansas City Manager Brian Platt.
Local law enforcement respond
KCPD officers respond to 911 calls about alleged crimes, investigate what happened, arrest potential suspects and then send cases to a prosecutor for charging. The Jackson County prosecutor’s office takes charges related to state crimes. Kansas City’s municipal court handles violations of city laws. The juvenile court system addresses offenses committed by those under 18.
KCPD Chief of Police Stacey Graves said the department has arrested “countless number of juveniles” for stealing cars. In 2023, 55 juveniles were arrested for car thefts, an increase of 400% from 2022, when 11 juveniles were arrested for stealing a car.
“Sometimes, when you look at some of these juveniles that are involved in these types of crimes, you can see the escalation of the crimes that they commit,” Graves said on KCUR’s Up to Date.
The KCPD sent 126 burglary cases to the Jackson County Prosecutor this year as of July 28, according to a blog post from Jean Peters Baker. Her office charged 106 of those cases, about 84%. Baker noted that the KCPD often reports far more burglaries than make it to her office. Last year, 2,757 burglaries were reported to the KCPD.
Fourth District At-Large Council member Crispin Rea said at a public meeting on crime earlier this week that KCPD’s investigations need to identify the people and groups committing property crimes.
“They are organized, and they are getting experienced at it,” Rea said. “To me, part of the solution is robust investigations that identify those folks quickly, hold them accountable so that they don't continue to do it.”
In response, Graves said the department hired more detectives to investigate property crimes this year.
But residents in hard-hit neighborhoods have criticized the KCPD for how long it takes officers to respond to car break-ins and other property crimes.
“The response times that we've had from police have been so slow it takes a crime of great magnitude, a death, in order to have an immediate response,” said Jessica Townsend, the Brookside resident who had her car stolen.
The KCPD says a multi-year staffing shortage of 911 call takers and law enforcement officers makes it harder to respond quickly. While 911 calls for service have gone up, the number of call takers has not.
The city, meanwhile, can’t order the KCPD to hire a certain number of new police officers, nor can they change department protocols to respond more quickly to property crime calls.
A board of five police commissioners controls the department — four of them appointed by the Missouri governor, and the fifth slot filled by Kansas City’s mayor.
Kansas City officials look at new jail as a solution
KCPD Police Chief Stacey Graves said people who commit crimes don’t face enough consequences. She said a new municipal jail could act as an intervention point where accused criminals would receive mandated services to help "course-correct."
"I'm not for mass incarceration, but I am for consequences, and some people need a time out," Graves told KCUR's Up To Date.
Some residents at the city council neighborhood meeting this week agreed.
“You guys have a crisis on your hands,” said resident William Jackson, who previously worked in Jackson County Family Court. “We don't like being tough. Sometimes we don't want to look like the bad guy, but deterrence is important.”
But research shows that increasing the severity of punishment by lengthening prison sentences or trying juveniles as adults doesn’t do much to deter juveniles from committing crimes, though harsher sentences keep them off the streets for longer once they are convicted.
Other research has shown that socioeconomic conditions — unstable housing, a neighborhood with poor infrastructure and no community spaces — can increase the risk factors that lead a juvenile to commit crimes.
While officials work on the multimillion-dollar, years-long municipal jail project, Lucas is proposing a temporary plan to city council to reopen 144-space detention and holding space on the 8th floor of KCPD headquarters downtown that closed in 2015.
If approved, construction on the $16 million project would begin next year. Money would come from the city’s public safety sales tax.
Kansas City Council member Johnathan Duncan, who represents the Waldo and Brookside neighborhoods, said more jail space isn’t the answer.
For the past 10 years, without its own municipal jail, Kansas City has sent people to the Vernon and Johnson County jails in mid-Missouri. Duncan said most are unhoused people charged with driving under the influence, petty theft, trespassing, low-level domestic violence cases that break city law or failure to appear in court.
Duncan said a new municipal jail would cost about $200 million to construct and then $600 million to operate. Instead, he said, the city needs to think beyond increasing punishment and enforcement and address the root causes of crime, like poverty, housing and jobs.
“What could we spend $800 million on, to actually prevent juveniles from feeling that they can throw their life away to steal and joy ride a car?” he said. “We have funded police, we have funded our courts, and we have not funded affordable housing, low-barrier shelters and programs that tend to our youth.”
Gwen Grant, president of the Urban League of Greater Kansas City, told council members to put more resources in the Prospect Ave. corridor, between 27th and 31st streets.
“Police respond to crime, they don't prevent crime, and we need to put more resources into prevention and intervention problems facing our community,” Grant said. “If you get to the root causes of those things, you'll find joblessness and drug addiction and homelessness, and if we don't invest in those, anything we do to mitigate this on a short term will only result in spending a whole lot more money.”
Two teens, whose names aren’t public because they’re juveniles, were charged in Jackson County family court with second-degree murder for the fatal shooting of Brady. The first male minor was also charged with attempted theft of a motor vehicle and armed criminal action. A judge will determine if he should be tried as an adult.
The second male was also charged with attempted stealing, a felony.
Police say the same evening when Brady was killed, his car was stolen from the restaurant parking lot.
