Frustrated parents want action in unsolved killings

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Kathi Phillips hoped that after Saturday's town hall meeting, she would know something about who killed her son.

She left unsatisfied and more frustrated than before.

"I got all the wrong answers," said Phillips, whose son Frederick, 24, was killed in December. "They're telling me that witnesses might not come forward, like my son doesn't matter. They're saying the ones who could come forward are too scared."

The meeting was called by parents of homicide victims whose cases have not been solved. More than a dozen residents attended.

"What happens if witnesses don't come forward?" Phillips asked.

"That's the end of the case," replied Bob Beaird, Jackson County prosecutor.

Beaird was one of six panelists, including representatives from the Kansas City Police Department and the U.S. attorney's office.

"There are a lot of problems in our community not getting solved," said Cynthia Canady, one of the event's organizers. "We need to find a way to help the police help us in our community."

In 2001 there were 114 murders in Kansas City, only half of which were solved, which is unacceptable, said J T Brown, the new president of the community group Move Up.

"We're beginning again the vigils for families of victims to bring attention and hopefully make some people come forward -- we're trying to seek out the guilty," he said.

Responsibility both ways

Ron Hunt, chief executive officer of Meet Me in the Middle Peace Coalition, said he hoped the gatherings would be a way for citizens to realize they had a responsibility to law enforcement, just as law enforcement has a responsibility to the community.

The Rev. Wallace Hartsfield agreed. If citizens do not step forward to help police, crime will escalate, he said.

"If the community doesn't respond positively, it becomes a reason for someone else to do it because they know no one will say anything," he said. "It feeds these people's inflated egos, and it will continue to happen again and again until it comes around to your house."

Just talking at such a meeting is useless without action, said George Johnson Jr., whose son George Johnson III, 18, was killed in September.

"It's only a matter of time until it happens to someone else's child," he said. "I can't save my son, but I can save someone else's."

Organizers plan to hold another meeting in February.

"I'm not so happy with today because we didn't reach a resolution," Canady said. "Next time, I want to have a plan. We've had enough of these talking meetings."