Kansas City is getting 225 federal agents to help solve murders

An additional 225 federal agents are expected to be in Kansas City any day now to help the city with new and old unsolved shootings – not to patrol the streets. So far this year, Kansas City has had at least 101 murders – about a 35 percent increase over 2019. During a press conference Wednesday, Tim Garrison, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, says the goal is to identify the most prolific violent offenders and get them off the streets.

“An unprecedented spike in violent crime deserves an unprecedented response from government authorities,” says Garrison.

The federal agents are from the FBI, U.S. Marshal Service, Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

“This operation is not tanks in the streets,” Garrison  says. “This operation is not a substitute patrol force. This operation is not overenforcement from federal law enforcement. This is not an operation where anyone is coming to take over the work that either our police department does here locally or other authorities and agencies do.”

The federal operation, called Operation Legend, is named after a four-year-old Kansas City boy killed last month while he was sleeping. Legend’s family, along with Mayor Quinton Lucas, joined Garrison while he laid out more details about the work.