COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
State lawmakers are reacting to the outpouring response by local leaders and community organizations following a deadly downtown Columbia shooting over the University of Missouri’s Homecoming weekend.
Columbia police responded to a shooting in the 800 block of East Broadway just before 2 a.m. Saturday. Police found three people shot; one woman, Aiyanna Williams later died from her wounds.
Following the shooting, University of Missouri System President Mun Choi publicly called on city and county leaders to crack down on crime and suggested the creation of a task force. He also involved Gov. Mike Kehoe into conversations of crime prevention in the downtown Columbia and campus areas.
Columbia Mayor Barbara Buffaloe then listed actions the city government and Columbia Police Department have taken and wrote she would form a taskforce for crime downtown. She wrote CPD added eight officers to night patrols, a 20% increase in staffing since last summer.
State Rep. Kathy Steinhoff (D-Columbia) said on Tuesday she supports the creation of a taskforce for crime prevention, but called the fallout a political firestorm.
“I was very disappointed in how it was handled,” Steinhoff said. “I think that it did not need to be this public calling out of one entity on how another one is doing their business and then immediately calling for support from the state level.”
The police department has also recently ramped up its enforcement of misdemeanor offenses downtown in an effort to reduce violent incidents. Steinhoff said she feels like it’s a step in the right direction.
“They’re enforcing things like jaywalking and just trying to make sure that our community understands that there are things that we need to do in order to have a safe community,” Steinhoff said.
Former Missouri State Rep. Chuck Basye (R-Boone County) said he also support the idea of a task force, but feels like more police officers would also help.
“Hiring more of these men and women that want to be police officers, maybe bringing back in some retired folks would be a great asset to the community,” Basye said.
However, he said he understands the training process is long and experience is important.
“There’s a lot of, police officers that are that are relatively new, within five years, in the Columbia Police Department,” Basye said. “But we need to do more and I think more law enforcement would be a great first step in the right direction.”
Steinhoff said there’s also a need for stricter gun laws at the state level, a sentiment that was also shared by Buffaloe in her statement.
‘We have some of the loosest gun laws in the country,” Steinhoff said. “There was not a law in place that would have helped that those police, even if they had had an idea that he was agitated, even if they had had an idea he had a gun on him, even if they had the idea that he was among so many people, there was really not a law in place that they could have stopped him from doing what he did.”
Basye said there is not a law that could be passed that would have prevented Saturday morning’s shooting and that the push needs to come from the prosecution and action against crimes.
“A beautiful, young lady lost her life because somebody didn’t care what the law was and acted in a violent manner,” Basye said. “We need to get more aggressive and crack down on these criminal elements.”