Seven years ago, a drive-by shooting became the first case District Attorney Mark Dupree handled as Wyandotte County’s top prosecutor. Bullets had pierced the front door of a home, busted out windows and flattened the tires of a vehicle parked outside. One year later, the district attorney said, damage done to that very home and vehicle remained unfixed. “What can we do about this?” Dupree recalled asking Damon Daniel, executive director of Kansas City’s Ad Hoc Group Against Crime, in 2017. “And it took us about seven years to figure it out — to find the funding.” During a Tuesday press conference, Dupree, alongside Daniel and Kansas City, Kansas Police Chief Karl Oakman, announced a new initiative meant assist crime victims as well as reduce and prevent gun violence in the community. The two-year program, funded with a $687,000 federal grant, will help pay for temporary relocations, home repairs, counseling and transportation, among other things. Dupree said Tuesday the initiative will offer some services that “are not currently available in this county.”
Source: KC Star
