KANSAS CITY, Mo. — As leaders in two major U.S. cities vehemently wave off President Donald Trump’s threat to send National Guard troops to address crime there, one question looms here.

Could the Republican president put Kansas City on his list of places where he deems military help is critically needed to address homicides, robberies and assaults?

Inside the Oval Office Monday, Trump told reporters: “We’re ready to go anywhere.”

He has said that Chicago will likely be his next target. Then New York. Maybe Baltimore. But Kansas City?

When asked if that was a possibility, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said: “I would defer you to the President’s remarks in the Oval today on potential future action. We wouldn’t get ahead of him on anything like this.”

Lawmakers across the sprawling Kansas City region, however, fear the city could be next. Crime in Kansas City and St. Louis, two cities more diverse and politically progressive than the rest of the state, has long been a key talking point for Missouri Republicans.

Kansas City and St. Louis are also two of the only cities in the nation with police departments under state control, a highly unusual arrangement with roots in Civil War-era racism and fueled by the tough-on-crime rhetoric of the Republican-controlled Missouri General Assembly.

“I am very concerned that if Trump thinks that he has the ability to send the military into blue cities across the country because he claims the crime is high there, that absolutely, I have no doubt that Kansas City and St. Louis end up on that list somehow,” said Missouri House Minority Leader Ashley Aune, a Kansas City Democrat.

Homicide numbers in Kansas City have been consistently high over the past nine years though there were dips in 2018, 2021 and 2024, according to annual reports for the Kansas City Police Department and numbers The Star tracks.

So far this year, homicide numbers are just slightly higher — by three deaths — than they were for the same time period in 2024. For the first half of the year, robberies are down 16%, police said. And as of Aug. 17, non-fatal shootings are down 32% for the same period of 2024, according to information provided by the office of Mayor Quinton Lucas.

The Star reached out to the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners to ask members about Trump’s crackdown and his decision to send the National Guard into Washington, D.C.,and potentially other cities. The board’s response came in an emailed statement.

“While we are aware of what is occurring nationally,” the statement said, “we are focused on the things that are within our span of influence and control here in Kansas City MO.”

Lucas, Kansas City’s mayor, said what Trump and his administration are doing is “completely about exploiting an issue and exploiting an issue for political gain.”

“And the President is using large, prominent cities in America, regardless of how safe or not they are,” Lucas said Tuesday. “This has almost nothing to do with public safety whatsoever. ... This is purely political. I think he has the Democrats in a position that he wants them, where we’re having the types of debate on, is your city safer or not? But a public, by and large, is saying we want more to be done. He’s not coming up with real solutions for it.”

Lucas said he may have “99 problems, but Trump isn’t one.” He said he works with the Board of Police Commissioners and others in the community “to do what we can to make Kansas City safe. “

“I’m not sitting here freaking out,” he said, “and I don’t recommend any mayor in America sit around and freak out.”

The concern about potential federal action comes after the President earlier this month announced a federal takeover of police in Washington, D.C. and deployed National Guard troops in a purported attempt to crack down on crime. Several Republican states have promised troops to bolster the takeover.

“Do I think he’s going to go to other places? Absolutely,” said Sen. Barbara Washington, a Kansas City Democrat. “(Trump) has said repeatedly that D.C. is a test.”

Washington said the federal takeover in Washington has sparked fear, particularly among people who plan to visit the District next month for the Congressional Black Caucus’ annual conference. Some people have canceled trips to D.C. in the wake of Trump’s action, she said.

“I do think Kansas City should be prepared, because this will probably happen to us,” Washington said. “I think the actions of our president have shown that he is not open to equality for people of color.”

Others, however, point out that Trump may not want to employ such a move in Missouri, a reliably red state. Any federal action in Kansas City is likely to receive a mixed reaction from Missouri Republicans, who control every statewide office and both chambers of the General Assembly.

What the numbers show

Kansas City often ends up in the conversation about cities with high violent crime. As national outlets reported Trump’s comments that he was open to sending troops to other cities, graphics showed communities with high homicide numbers.

CNN shared data detailing 11 major cities with the highest rates. Kansas City was in the group, coming in at No. 9. Others included St. Louis, Baltimore, Jackson and Detroit. Washington D.C. was No. 11.

Earlier this year, U.S. News and World Report listed Kansas City as number eight on a list of the 25 most dangerous places for 2024-2025. The company determined its rankings using FBI crime reports of each city’s murder and property crime rates per 100,000 people, according to the site.

Two years ago, the city saw a record number of homicides. In 2023, Kansas City recorded 185 homicides, a number tracked by The Kansas City Star that includes fatal police shootings, which the police department does not count in its data.

In 2024, the city saw a decrease from that with 148 homicides, according to The Star’s database. And so far in 2025, there have been 105 homicides as of Tuesday evening, three more than this time last year.

Of those 105 deaths, 42 were the results of an argument between individuals or groups and another 18 were the result of domestic violence, according to police data.

Lucas pointed to the fact that one factor in the homicide numbers is the increase in deaths related to domestic violence. And if Kansas City is targeted for Trump’s crackdown, he said, “you won’t have the National Guard coming to town in people’s homes. “

What Kansas City and other cities could use, he and other leaders say, are resources to fight all the violence. Not troops.

“I have called out this intervention in American cities because I think it’s an injustice right now in Washington, D.C.,” Lucas said. “I think it would be an injustice in any other city, including my own, if this happened.”

The violence continued this past weekend in downtown Kansas City when two people were killed and three others injured in a shooting. Early Sunday, just after 4 a.m., police responded to a surface parking lot at 13th Street and Grand Blvd.

Officers found a man with a gunshot wound who was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. Four others were transported to a local hospital with various injuries. One of them later died.

After that deadly shooting, a member of the Kansas City Council running for Missouri Senate as a Republican took to X — formerly known as Twitter — with his frustrations about crime.

“Absolute sickening to wake up to the news of another shooting between young people on the streets of our city,” wrote Nathan Willett. “My heart goes out to the victims & their families.

“This happened in the heart of downtown KC. We all love this city but we have to be real with ourselves. Do we look like a city ready for the World Cup? Do we look like a city ready to entertain downtown baseball?

“Let’s have a city that’s good for the people in it now — not for the next big thing.“

Does Kansas City need help?

There’s a long history of push-and-pull between policies enacted by the GOP-controlled legislature and the largely Democratic city. Local officials have often chafed at the state’s willingness to impose itself on the city, whether on police control, guns and housing rules.

A federal takeover is certain to garner some support from members of the right-wing Missouri Freedom Caucus, a group of state lawmakers who regularly push Republicans to be more conservative. The group’s leader expressed interest in a statement to The Star.

“If the locals are unable to combat the crime due to years of mismanagement, attempts to defund impacting recruitment and retention, then yes I would be in favor of receiving some help in St. Louis City and Kansas City,” said Sen. Nick Schroer, a Defiance Republican who chairs the Freedom Caucus in the Missouri Senate.

Missouri Republicans have often been staunch defenders of the Trump administration and frequent critics of crime in Kansas City. However, a federal takeover could test that support in a state that often resists federal oversight.

Frank Bowman, professor emeritus at the University of Missouri School of Law, said it would be unlikely for Trump to unilaterally deploy troops to Kansas City.

Bowman, who has written extensively about the Trump administration, framed the Republican president’s actions elsewhere as a performative exercise with no real goal of addressing crime.

“I think it’s profoundly unlikely that Mr. Trump would unilaterally try to do anything in a state as reliably red as Missouri now is,” said Bowman, who acknowledged it’s possible that Trump could take some action in Kansas City if he had the support of Missouri’s Republican governor.

Governors are typically in charge of deploying their states’ National Guard troops. The Missouri Constitution gives the governor the power to call up and deploy the state’s National Guard “except when it is called into the service of the United States.”

A spokesperson for Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe, a Republican who faced criticism this summer for preemptively activating the National Guard ahead of planned anti-Trump protests, did not respond to questions about whether he would support a federal takeover.

Before taking elected office, Rep. Lane Roberts, a Joplin Republican, had an extensive background in law enforcement. He previously served as director of the Missouri Department of Public Safety and a police chief in cities in Missouri, Washington state and Oregon.

Roberts, reached by phone, said a federal military deployment in Kansas City was possible but unlikely. He pointed to the fact that D.C. is a federal district as compared to Kansas City.

“I would really be surprised if we tried to federalize any of these state National Guards,” Roberts said. “Not that it couldn’t happen. But remember, in the National Guard, a lot of that funding comes from the feds, but they actually are employees of the state. So it’s a little more dicey when you’re talking about something outside of D.C.”

When asked whether he would support a federal takeover in Kansas City, Roberts said he “would struggle with that.”

“I wouldn’t want to say I would support it or not, because it would depend on the issue at hand,” he said. “But I can’t tell you that the idea thrills me a great deal.”

Roberts said additional law enforcement officials are a deterrent for crime. However, he also pointed to the 1970 Kent State massacre, where Ohio State National Guard members shot and killed four students and injured nine others during protests against the Vietnam War.

“I’m old enough to remember Kent State. You put citizen soldiers behind the gun and American citizens on the front end of the gun — one shot and we’ll have a whole different discussion,” Roberts said. “I’m reluctant to let that happen.”

For Aune, the top Democrat in the Missouri House, Trump’s actions and threats regarding federal troops will likely force Democrats to “ring the alarm bells” about “how terrifying this is.”

“This is scary,” Aune said. “He is using his power in a way that should terrify every single American, especially Americans who value their freedom.”

_____

©2025 The Kansas City Star. Visit at kansascity.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.