As Kansas City’s homicide count climbs, with even a 3-year-old girl murdered with her mother, authorities are trying everything.
About a dozen clergy gathered Tuesday to pray and call for congregations throughout the area to observe a “Pink Weekend for Justice.”
They ask people of all faiths to remember the murder of 3-year-old Damiah White, found dead Aug 23 with her mother, Myeisha Turner, 28.
From Oct. 4 to Oct. 6, congregations should remember her and discus how to reduce violent crime, they said.
The clergy alliance of More2 amounts to about 20 congregations working with the Kansas City No Violence Alliance.
Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said she hopes widespread attention to the infant’s brutal killing will lead to tips. The killer may not be in church, but someone who knows about him or her could be.
“This is a call for action to get everyone to not stand for Damiah’s killer walking free,” she said.
The event was at Linwood United Church, 3151 Olive, where Pastor Tamara Miller called for an end to the violence.
The church was built in 1919 and its wooden pews were made of lumber intended to make gun stocks for World War I, until the war ended.
“Imagine all the energy that can be put to useful and peaceful purpose when the violence stops,” she said.
Pastor Bob Hill of Community Christian Church at 46th and Main Streets said people of faith can call on their energy, moral center and traditions to help attack violence and promote justice.
Damiah and her mother’s deaths were so pointless, he said, “and justice has not been wrought yet.”
The clergy members signed a NoVA pledge for its faith-based task force, committing to things like assisting in outreach to those at risk of violence and praying for justice and violence reduction.
Then they all sang amen as they walked out into the sun.
Hill said, “We will not stop, this is just the beginning.”
They have a lot of work to do. As of Tuesday the year’s homicide count stood at 86 – five more than at the same time last year.
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