As shootings ‘skyrocket,’ Wichita police get council approval for federal crackdown
Amid a surge in violent crime in Wichita, police on Tuesday received City Council approval of a partnership with the U.S. Marshals for a federal crackdown.
The federal operation follows what Police Chief Gordon Ramsay called a “busy weekend” with seven shootings where nine people were shot. One of the shootings hospitalized an officer, who was shot in the head and legs with what a police captain described as “an AR-15 style assault rifle.”
“We have seen since a little over a year ago, we saw shooting numbers skyrocket,” Ramsay said Monday during a news conference where he provided an update on the injured officer. “I really feel, and chiefs all around the country are all saying the same thing, that something has happened societally that is causing people to immediately resort to solving conflict through the use of guns.”
Part of the solution may be Operation Triple Beam, a partnership with the Marshals Service that police say is intended “to apprehend wanted violent offenders and reduce violent crime in the community.” The operation was on the City Council’s consent agenda for Tuesday’s meeting, meaning it was unanimously approved with no discussion.
Operation Triple Beam will be a 60-day initiative between July and September with a goal of investigating and arresting people who have active state or federal arrest warrants. By apprehending fugitives, the joint law enforcement effort would result in improved public safety and reduced violent crime, according to the WPD report to the council.
The operation will target violent crimes, weapons offenses and felony drug offenses.
“When we look at our 2019 numbers — we had Operation Triple Beam here in 2019 — it was the first year in four or five years where we saw a significant decrease in violent crime,” Ramsay said. “And then 2020 comes along, and you know, everything was thrown out the windows. Last year, Oklahoma City had Triple Beam, and their numbers were lower than our peer cities. I feel that Triple Beam is a very worthy effort and that the results speak for themselves.”
Wichita saw a 40% year-over-year drop in shootings during the two-month enforcement period in 2019, officials said at the time. The operation ended with 930 arrests, 82 gun seizures and more than $835,000 in illegal narcotics taken off the city’s streets.
‘Beyond just law and order’
“Our jail right now is bursting at the seams, and it is bursting at the seams because we are catching perpetrators,” Ramsay said. “There are over 120 homicide suspects inside the Sedgwick County jail. So it goes beyond just law and order. There is something bigger that we have to start looking at and trying to figure out how we can slow this tide.”
A successful 2021 operation could put more pressure on the jail.
“The jail’s full, but to be honest, whether or not the jail’s full really isn’t a concern of mine right now,” Ramsay said. “Catching these trigger-pullers are my biggest concern. And when we catch them, that’s where they’re going to be placed.”
“We’re not going to tolerate this anymore. This community is going to say enough is enough. We’re tired of seeing people shot and hurt. We’re tired of seeing habitual offenders commit crime after crime. And let’s figure out a solution.”
Despite the increase in shootings, Wichita is better off than many other places and the community is safer than it was in the early 1990s, Ramsay said.
But state and federal data show Wichita’s violent crime rate is more than triple the nationwide figure. In 2019, the most recent year with available data, the nationwide violent crime rate was 3.7 per 1,000 people. In Wichita, the violent crime rate was 11.4 per 1,000 people. The statistics are from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Kansas Bureau of Investigation.
The statewide rate, according to the KBI, is 4.3 per 1,000.
Local officers and their federal reinforcements can’t be the only long-term answer to crime in Kansas, the police chief said.
“When it comes to addressing shootings, too often the criminal justice system is the face of all things bad,” Ramsay said. “What we need to start looking at is early intervention into keeping kids in school, resources for families in need. Right now, I think these are the results of failures in our society, and we need to look deeper at doing everything we can to ensure the kids get a good education, that there’s opportunities for everybody and that their first choice isn’t grabbing a gun to solve a problem.”
Officer wellness; drug trafficking
Also on the consent agenda for Tuesday’s City Council meeting were items dealing with officer wellness and drug trafficking. They were also unanimously approved without discussion.
The officer wellness measure involved an application for a three-year, $125,000 grant via the Law Enforcement Mental Health and Wellness Act. The grant, if awarded, would come from the Justice Department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. It would pay for a mobile wellness app, which would cost $35,000 per year after the grant expires.
Ramsay said Saturday’s officer-involved shooting was traumatic for the department and the community.
“We know now more than ever that officers carry an accumulation of trauma with them throughout their career,” he said. “This was obviously one of those cases that is going to impact these officers the rest of their careers. We also know this impacted the entire neighborhood. I just spoke with a neighbor who was traumatized by what had occurred. This has impacted our whole community. This is an example of what our officers deal with every day.”
The anti-narcotic measure approved Wichita’s continued participation in the 2021 Drug Enforcement Agency High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Task Force. The KBI will ultimately reimburse WPD up to $109,524 for overtime and related task force expenses.
Wichita has been part of the DEA’s Midwest HIDTA task force since 2002. Program documents provided to the council show the task force primarily targets methamphetamine from Mexico.
Most meth in the U.S. is produced in Mexico and smuggled across the border, the KBI and DEA have said. The black market economics of illegal drugs have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic decreasing supply.
“The price for purchasing methamphetamine on the street drastically dropped from 2014 to 2019 due to the increased production and importation of Mexican methamphetamine,” the KBI’s 2020 report states. “Due to this increased availability of imported methamphetamine, the demand for domestically produced methamphetamine has declined. In 2020 travel restrictions enacted by governments during the pandemic reduced the availability of methamphetamine and increased the price paid by consumers.”
Meth now sells for about $5,000 per pound in Kansas, up from as little as $3,000 in 2019. In 2014, a pound was worth as much as $15,000. Police have said that rising meth prices can drive up property crimes, pointing to a spike in catalytic converter thefts.
This story was originally published June 21, 2021 at 8:50 PM.