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Old 10-01-2017, 09:28 AM
 
Location: Overland Park, Kansas
767 posts, read 1,322,611 times
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Last nights tragic Mass Street shooting is just one of several tragic events to happen in Lawrence this year, let alone the cluster of events that have happened over the past 30 days . Lawrence shooting: 3 dead, 2 injured when shots fired downtown | The Kansas City Star
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-sta...motel-shooting
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-sta...rence-shooting


These could just all be isolated incidents, but I'm glad that that the three friends I had living in Lawrence have moved elsewhere and that my sibling never drives over there anymore at night and is leaving Topeka soon.
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Old 10-01-2017, 09:49 AM
 
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It's a shame what's going on. Lawrences murder and crime rate has gone through the roof (relatively). The city had gone 6-7 years without a murder and the crime rate was very low. Starting about 4 years ago the murder and crime rates have been increasing. Topekas crime rate has stayed level the last few years, but our number of murders has increased. Both cities crime rates are near or below the national average.

I'm pretty sure a lot of it is drug related. When I worked in Lawrence from 2013-2014 I was shocked by how open and prevalent drug use was. That's one of the reasons we didn't stay.
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Old 10-01-2017, 04:11 PM
 
Location: Overland Park, Kansas
767 posts, read 1,322,611 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mattks View Post
It's a shame what's going on. Lawrences murder and crime rate has gone through the roof (relatively). The city had gone 6-7 years without a murder and the crime rate was very low. Starting about 4 years ago the murder and crime rates have been increasing. Topekas crime rate has stayed level the last few years, but our number of murders has increased. Both cities crime rates are near or below the national average.

I'm pretty sure a lot of it is drug related. When I worked in Lawrence from 2013-2014 I was shocked by how open and prevalent drug use was. That's one of the reasons we didn't stay.
Lawrence has had five homicides since Sept. 1 and city leaders are searching for answers / LJWorld.com

Five since September 1st :/. I've done a little bit of poking around, and a lot of crime in Lawrence seems to originate in Shawnee County. I "went out" in Lawrence twice in the last 365 and it definitely gets scary on Mass Street at times during the night.

Also, there is always the chance that Lawrence has been manipulating their crime rate. I recently took a criminal justice class and a sociology class in which we learned that the Hays Police and the University Police aren't required to report all crimes to national databases and that Hays has a much higher crime rate than what is officially recorded. Dodge City, Overland Park, Olathe, Lenexa, and Manhattan were also on the list of towns my professor mentioned as manipulating crime statistics though cherry picking which data they report. Towns that were listed as fully compliant were towns like Junction City, Garden City, Topeka, Kansas City, Kansas, Leavenworth, Pittsburg, and Wichita.

Last edited by empires228; 10-01-2017 at 04:43 PM..
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Old 10-01-2017, 06:47 PM
 
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The motel shooting was done by some kids from Kansas City, KS. This will rattle many and there may be a gradual migration away from the center of the city where the crime seems to be focused. The shooting at 11th and Massachusetts Street was about 1/2 block from the police station. The shooter likely did not know where the police station is located.
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Old 10-01-2017, 11:20 PM
 
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Do they have a motive yet for the shooting? A witness said there was a fist fight just prior to the shooting, but how does that lead to shooting random people.
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Old 10-02-2017, 07:01 AM
 
Location: Kansas
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We have a son with special needs and were looking around the state for a good placement. Everyone was encouraging us to check out Lawrence. I looked at the crime, type of criminals on the roster, and "No, thanks!"

Crime Statistics | Lawrence KS Police Department They only have crimes since 2012, but the sidebar tracks current "events". If you click on KBI, you'll go to crime statistics for all KS cities/counties. I always check for sexual, violent and drug crimes, the listing, and it was robust.
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Old 10-03-2017, 11:57 AM
 
Location: Overland Park, Kansas
767 posts, read 1,322,611 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mattks View Post
Do they have a motive yet for the shooting? A witness said there was a fist fight just prior to the shooting, but how does that lead to shooting random people.
I haven’t seen anything yet. There’s an article today about how minority communities feel like city leaders in Topeka are ignoring the issues in the community and that’s why the city is sitting at 22 homiacides this year. The people making the call for change mentioned how Topeka’s crime has started to spill over into Lawrence. Lawrence has home grown crime too, but with how overly expensive housing there is, I have no idea how outside of current/formed college students and dropouts living with their families.
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Old 10-03-2017, 02:16 PM
 
4,668 posts, read 3,899,635 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by empires228 View Post
I haven’t seen anything yet. There’s an article today about how minority communities feel like city leaders in Topeka are ignoring the issues in the community and that’s why the city is sitting at 22 homiacides this year. The people making the call for change mentioned how Topeka’s crime has started to spill over into Lawrence. Lawrence has home grown crime too, but with how overly expensive housing there is, I have no idea how outside of current/formed college students and dropouts living with their families.
24 homicides. 2 more in the last few days. Murder/suicide by two brothers. Topeka had (probably not this year) one of the lowest crime rates for a capitol city. I think it was in the top 5 safest capitol cities because the city government keeps promoting to make "Topeka the safest capitol city in America". Back in the 90's to 2000's our crime rate had skyrocketed to its peak and it had been declining significantly since then. But Topeka does have some really bad neighborhoods.
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Old 10-04-2017, 07:34 AM
 
Location: Kansas
25,961 posts, read 22,120,062 times
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Topeka has a ways to go: April draws to violent close with four homicides in Topeka in last eight days of month | The Topeka Capital-Journal

58 murders in 2016 in Topeka: http://www.accesskansas.org/kbi/stat...me%20Index.pdf

This is a list of the 10 most dangerous in KS: Topeka made #4, https://www.roadsnacks.net/these-are...ies-in-kansas/
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Old 10-04-2017, 01:20 PM
 
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Originally Posted by AnywhereElse View Post
2016 was 18 murders and 58 rapes for Topeka.
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