Wichita police, Broadway motel owner work to cut crime in area by 73%

Crime is noticeably down around a South Broadway motel where multiple people were shot and a successful drug raid occurred in 2020 after officials and the owner worked to make changes to the property and its tenants.

Since a month-long injunction in Fall 2020, aggravated assault cases near Afton Motel, 855 S. Broadway, are down 73% compared to the same time period before the injunction, Officer Charley Davidson said in a news release Thursday.

Davidson said there were 76 criminal cases and 200 calls at the motel over a period of roughly seven and half months. Court records show a motel manager was arrested on suspicion of sexual battery of a juvenile during that time. There were also cases during that time involving “multiple aggravated assaults with a firearm,” aggravated battery with a screwdriver and “multiple cases” involving drugs, police said.

“Drugs and other multiple nuisance calls are overwhelmingly connected to violent crime,” Police Chief Gordon Ramsay said in the release. “(Police) will utilize partnerships and all available laws to reduce and eliminate violent crimes that plague our city at problem locations.”

Many of the calls involving police were really medical issues, owner Manjur Alam said during a phone interview. He said a tenant with medical problems, who refused to take his prescriptions, often led to his spouse calling 911.

“70 to 80% of the calls were from one single room,” Alam said. “That was happening, on certain days, there would be multiple times.”

He said the injunction sought to temporarily close the business while a “needed face lift” was done. But the city and Alam worked out an agreement where the motel could stay open while making the improvements, he said. Under the injunction, rooms on the first floor were not being rented while certain repairs were made.

Other improvements included spending nearly $40,000 to repair the parking lot, replacing broken lights outside and adding 24-hour staffing, he said.

He said motel maintenance fell behind during a previous landlord. Alam took back control of the motel about 18 months ago. Alam said he’s owned the motel since the early 2000s.

Alam said, like all motels, they struggle knowing whether tenants have nefarious plans, like using a room to sell drugs.

“We have rooted out all of the tenants that Wichita police wanted us to get rid of,” he said. “We’re just trying to do a better job of weeding people out.”

The bulk of the problem, he said, started with people in the area coming to loiter in the motel parking lot. People would refuse to leave and the police would be called. They would be arrested and return six hours later, he said.

“All those guys are gone,” he said, crediting Wichita police. “I am glad things are going better. That is all that matters at the end of the day.”