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The Kansas City Star

Kansas City Mayor Sly James vowed Sunday that he’d take steps to end large, nighttime gatherings of unsupervised teenagers and preteens on the Country Club Plaza by holding parents to account.

How, he didn’t know.

But whatever plan is developed, it will be a joint effort of the mayor and the City Council, James said after consultation with school officials, police and the juvenile court, among others. And James promised that the plan will be in place before next weekend.

It may or may not include an early curfew, as some are calling for.

“We can’t expect that imposing a curfew is going to stop some 15-, 16-, 17-year-old from bringing a gun to anywhere,” he said at an afternoon City Hall news conference. “On the other hand, we should be able to expect parents not to have their 13-year-old children on the Plaza  getting shot.”

His announcement came a day after the Saturday night shooting that saw three youths wounded and the mayor forced to the ground by his security team. James, along with former Councilman Alvin Brooks and a group of ministers, was at the Plaza talking with kids and assessing the crowd problem in response to calls from Plaza owner Highwoods Properties and others to roll back the current midnight curfew on weekends to 9 p.m.

“A curfew would have merit in our view, but that is a decision our capable mayor and his team of municipal experts need to weigh,” Highwoods said in a statement issued Sunday.

The shootings occurred shortly before 11 p.m. Saturday near 47th and Wyandotte streets. When shots rang out — witnesses reported hearing five or six — James was about 50 yards away. His two bodyguards pushed him to the ground and drew their guns.

“They basically forced me into the flowerbeds by the Cheesecake Factory,” James said.

He was uninjured. But two boys and a girl — 13, 15 and 16 years old — were wounded. A bullet grazed the girl’s face, and the two boys were shot in their legs, police said. None of the injuries was life-threatening. James said all three youths were in stable condition on Sunday.

Kansas City police continue to investigate the shootings and interview witnesses. Police believe some witnesses know the shooters’ identities but are reluctant to reveal their names.

The Plaza has been the scene of large crowds of underage people both this year and last, mostly on warm weekend evenings in the spring, summer and fall. Some come to see a movie and others are there simply to hang out, James said.

Generally, they are well behaved, but there have been sporadic bouts of violence and disorder.

The first notable occurrence was on April 10, 2010, when as many as 900 youths, some as young as 11, converged on the shopping and entertainment district that Saturday night. Police responded to reports of vandalism and assaults. One group of teens robbed and beat a couple from Grandview. A girl in a prom dress was shoved into a fountain. Fights broke out.

Police used pepper spray to disperse groups who refused to move along when instructed to do so.

Afterward, city officials and community leaders expressed their concern by staging a summit to look for ways to deal with the situation. The general agreement was that kids needed more activities.

At the time, City Councilwoman Cindy Circo said she would put together a “youth master plan” to see where there might be gaps between programs like Night Hoops basketball and other activities. However, no plan was developed. Circo now says she is unconvinced that more city-sponsored activities are the solution.

“We can have organized programs, but the kids who need to be there, aren’t,” she said in an interview before Saturday’s incident.

Circo, the mayor pro-tem, was at James’ side on Sunday as the mayor acknowledged that while more youth activities would give kids more things to do, it was not the city’s responsibility alone. Churches, schools and businesses, also, need to get involved, he said. But most of all he blamed parents for allowing their children to roam unattended late into the night at the Plaza and other gathering places in the city.

“We have a youth problem on the Plaza, but first and foremost we have a parent problem,” he said.

James said many of the kids he spoke with Saturday were from Wyandotte County, Grandview, Raymore and other suburbs, and had been dropped off by their parents. Any new plan of action the city develops, James said, needs to be aimed at getting the attention of parents who, he said, use the Plaza as “a babysitter.”

“How do we hold parents responsible?” he asked.

Police have repeatedly called on parents to be more responsible.

Philadelphia over the weekend began enforcing a 9 p.m. curfew on Fridays and Saturdays in areas that have seen even worse problems than Kansas City has experienced. Police arrested about 50 people the first night. Teens can be fined up to $300 and parents $500.

Kansas City’s current curfew is midnight on weekends and 11 p.m. the rest of the week. An initial violation results in a $1 fine. Subsequent violations are $500 or probation, which includes family counseling.

Exceptions to the curfew include going to work, school activities and doing errands for a parent, among others.

Among Plaza merchants who spoke with a reporter on Sunday there was a strong consensus that serious steps are needed to solve what they see as a serious problem.

“This isn’t the first time. There have been multiple shootings,” said Lydia Wade, 19, an employee at Cold Stone Creamery, citing an instance several weeks back in which gunshots were fired just west of the Plaza along 47th Street.

Wade said that only recently has she felt less safe and greater trepidation at the Plaza. Although Wade did not work this most recent Saturday night, she said she often does work the late Saturday night shift.

“Usually, Saturday nights, there are large groups of children who don’t even look like they should be on their own,” she said. “They’re out at, like, 11 p.m. They look like they’re 7 or 8 years old.”

She recalled one night seeing a band of what she estimated to be 20 to 40 teenagers and young children just walking together down the center of 47th Street.

“The police had to chase them out of the street,” she said.

A handful of merchants said they are torn between striking a balance between the rights of kids to congregate against business interests and the safety of other Plaza-goers.

“As a businessperson, it’s not good for business,” said Jocelyn Scoggin, an employee at the nearby shop Origins. “But do the kids have the right to walk where they want? They do.”

In an ill economy, she said, neither the Plaza nor the city can afford a reputation that damages commerce.

Scoggin said that after Saturday night’s shooting, she understands how the parents of any child, particularly teenagers, would be reluctant to send their children to the Plaza unaccompanied on a weekend night.

At N Valentino, manager Julie Brunson, 27, supports a curfew even though her store closes at 8 p.m.

“It doesn’t matter whether it happens at 8 at night or 2 in the morning,” she said of the violence. “When you have situations like this where people work, people live, people shop, it doesn’t help. I don’t want it to give people the wrong idea of the Plaza.”

On Saturday night, P.F. Chang’s manager Tony Hayman, 35, said he heard what he believed to be the first of at least six gunshots about 10:45 p.m. The doors to the restaurant had already been locked, he said, because of the late hour.

He said his first concern was to keep patrons inside as a mass of kids ran through the Plaza and police descended on horseback and in patrol cars. At least one helicopter hovered above.

“What really made it surreal was to see the yellow crime scene tape wrapped around the Plaza,” he said.

All open shops on the Plaza, he said, ended up closing early, including P.F. Chang’s.

“People were calling us and asking if there was a riot,” he said.

On Sunday, Hallie and Rob Stewart of Lenexa strolled along the Plaza with their 7-month-old son, Braylon. The couple moved to Kansas City in March from the Minneapolis area. They hadn’t heard of the shooting, but said that they recalled that several years ago the Mall of America was also forced to take measures, including a curfew, when groups of teenagers became overwhelming.

“I can see both sides of it,” Rob Stewart said. “On one hand, teenagers like to linger around. But I have to tell you, in terms of the economic impact, I’d rather have a curfew and make things safer than not