Subject: Gang Violence

• Roeland Park's Peculiar Art

  May 8, 2008

• Alleged gang leader gets 10 years

  October 13, 2008

• Best Comeback Album

  October 7, 2004

• Killa City: Drive-by leaves one dead, two injured

  Last night, KMBC Channel 9 called the scene of a drive-by shooting "Terror Town." In January, The Kansas City Star did a three-part series calling the 64130 zip code the "Murder Factory." No matter what it's called, yesterday marked the first murder of the year in the area. A 38-year-old man was fatally shot in the head by a stray bullet while sitting on a porch in the 4400 block of Agnes Avenue yesterday afternoon, The Kansas City Star reported. View Larger Map The 38-year-old wasn't the

  March 5, 2009

• Aim4Peace hitting its targets

  In November, I wrote this story ("117 Homicides and Counting," November 18, 2008) about how dumb bureaucracy and egotism was getting in the way of Aim4Peace, the city's new anti-violence program. Despite using a template that was successful across the nation and being run by dedicated people like Tracie Mclendon, the program just couldn't get the financial support it needed or hire the people it wanted to. But if today's numbers are true, the program's saving lives.

  March 11, 2009

• Show and Tell

  September 1, 2005

• KCK gang member gets more jail time

  Last year, when a second jury failed to convict Jose Franco, Jr. on murder charges related to the death of toddler Yelena Guzman, Wyandotte County's Chief Deputy District Attorney Michael Russell said he'd try the alleged gang leader a third time. In October, when a judge sentenced Franco to 10 years on a conspiracy charge related to the crime, Russell was still aiming for another trial that would have started this month. It seemed, in the case of Familia Loca, the county was determined to extra

  March 27, 2009

• Copycat Killer

  October 5, 2006

• Canine Grime

  December 7, 2006

• Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit

  April 9, 2009

• Mad Marlon

  April 2, 2009

• Letters from the week of December 4

  December 4, 2008

• Jason Isbell

  July 10, 2008

• The War on La Familia

  May 1, 2008

• Wacky Fun With Shanks

  January 24, 2008

• Shauntay Speaks

  Awaiting trial in March, Shauntay Henderson remembers her community-activist grandmother and dreams of making babies.

  January 24, 2008

• Stage Capsule Reviews

  Reviews and previews of upcoming shows.

  August 9, 2007

• Jason Isbell

  August 9, 2007

• Superzero

  Spider-Man 3 spins a web of mediocrity.

  May 24, 2007

• Shauntay's Elite Club

  April 12, 2007

• Concrete Jungle Gym

  March 15, 2007

• Deep Doo-doo

  A modern-day Bonnie and Clyde are after your money again.

  June 22, 2006

• Ministers With Balls

  April 6, 2006

• Deadstring Brothers

  March 9, 2006

• When No One Else Would Come

  December 8, 2005

• Street Fighters

  November 10, 2005

• Weird War

  Illuminated by the Light(Drag City)

  August 18, 2005

• When Moody Ruled

  August 4, 2005

• Tone Death, first of two parts

  The murder of Anthony Watkins, aka Fat Tone, made perfect sense, at least to his fans.

  July 28, 2005

• Pushing the Pushers

  The good news about a reclaimed gang-infested neighborhood may have been a bit premature.

  January 20, 2005

• Under Dogs

  Though it’s getting some national hype, Kansas City is neither a gangsta’s paradise nor a rapper’s delight.

  June 24, 2004

• Hard Cell

  The feds want to bring down a deadly prison gang, and crimes in Leavenworth are exhibit A.

  April 29, 2004

• Raekwon

  The Lex Diamond Story (Universal)

  February 26, 2004

• Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

  Wednesday, October 1, at the Bottleneck.

  September 25, 2003

• Kid Gloves

  Once in a while, the whatsoever boxing club can make an honest fighter out of a neighborhood tough.

  September 11, 2003

• God Forsaken

  The brutal, brilliant City of God takes us inside Rio de Janeiro's urban decay.

  March 13, 2003

• Meaner Streets

  Martin Scorsese looks at the roots of New York's violence, with mixed results.

  December 19, 2002

• Fallen Angel

  Angela Coffel, the first woman in Missouri deemed a sexually violent predator, is locked up despite overwhelming evidence that she isn't one.

  January 24, 2002

• Best Hangout if You Have a Yellow Motorcycle With a Leather Jacket to Match

  Latte' Land Espresso

  October 18, 2001

• Blood Brother

  Takeshi Kitano brings the dead, and deadpan, to America.

  September 27, 2001

• Writing La Vida Loca

  Censors hate Luis Rodriguez's memoir, which is only one reasonwhy it's so important.

  September 21, 2000

• Killa City: Rap on YouTube mentions homicide victim Raheem Marchbanks

  A 16-year-old boy was gunned down in the 2600 block of Jackson Monday. Now the family of homicide victim Raheem Marchbanks say a rap song posted on YouTube (it's since been pulled down) mentions Marchbanks by name and gives the location of the homicide as well as a promise of more violence to come, KSHB Channel 41 reports. Photos of young men throwing up gang signs and showing off weapons like these are depicted on Garfield Tha Gunna512's MySpace pageThe song is by Garfield Tha Gunna512. In phot

  June 12, 2009

• Member of Juggalo Rydas sentenced to 15 years for shooting up vacant apartment

  Dewey W. DixonDewey W. Dixon, who is apparently down with the clown, will be serving a mandatory 15-year prison sentence for shooting up an apartment with a Mac-10 semiautomatic machine gun in September 2008. The 32-year-old from Shawnee Mission was sentenced Thursday for two counts of unlawful use of a weapon, property damage and marijuana possession. A news release issued by the Platte County prosecutor's office says Dixon claimed to be a member of the Juggalo Rydas, which police say is a stre

  June 19, 2009

• The Calamity Cubes

  July 9, 2009

• Aim4Peace gets $300,000 grant

  Embattled anti-violence organization Aim4Peace will be around for a while. The organization announced today that it had received a $300,000 grant from the Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City to keep the program alive for another six months. That's good news for Aim4Peace, since the city slashed its budget from $773,083 to $150,492 this year. Back in November 2008, we dissected the program's false starts and bureaucratic mismanagement in the story "117 Homicides and Counting

  July 31, 2009

• Is your kid in a gang? Here are the signs

  ​It's probably no surprise to hear gang members are getting younger, but anti-gang education in elementary schools? Yes, it's like that now. "We used to think if we produce information and work in partnership with the district that we could get our message out there in the high school and it would be all right," said Major Jan Zimmerman, commander of KCPD's Narcotics and Vice Division. "But obviously we need to be in the middle schools. We need to be in the elementary schools." Last night, t

  August 12, 2009

• How things work: Gangs

  ​The AdHoc Group Against Crime hosted its second meeting on gangs last night, which was designed to let the two dozen or so folks in attendance how gangs work.Gangs in Kansas City are cut up by blocks and the mish-mash sounds like a drawing for PowerBall. There's 43, 33, 39, 51, 12, and when those last two combine, Five Ace Deuce. Who says thugs aren't creative? There's also a lot more neighborhood gangs than that.Kansas City homicide detective Herb Robinson said most Kansas City gangs are loo

  September 9, 2009

• Booker T.

  September 24, 2009

• Who's Who in Jackson County jail?

  ​ If you're one of those people who sits around contemplating the demographics of the Jackson County jail, the Ad Hoc Group Against Crime has a treat for you.At tonight's monthly meeting, the group will host an officer from the Jackson County Detention Center who will discuss the ins and outs of the general population from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at 3116 Prospect. She'll break it down by offense, race, age and gender, and then take questions. For the last two months, Ad Hoc meetings have been about gan

  October 13, 2009

• Rightbloggers defend Rush with an NFL boycott; are beer, buffalo wings next?

  ​ The National Football League has a large millionaire population which predictably contributes overwhelmingly to Republicans over Democrats. Yet this week we learned from rightbloggers that the NFL is in fact a wing of the liberal conspiracy.Early this month Rush Limbaugh and Dave Checketts collaborated on a bid to buy the St. Louis Rams NFL franchise. But after some people in the League -- including Commissioner Roger Goodell and NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith --

  October 19, 2009