COLUMBIA, Mo. (KIMZ)
University of Missouri and Columbia City leaders are asking downtown businesses to sign a form that would allow the Columbia Police Department to warn unwanted people on private property for trespassing.
Without a letter of enforcement, the business owner would have to be present for the unwanted people to be cited with trespassing, the Boone County Prosecutor Roger Johnson said.
Community leaders are pushing for businesses to submit this voluntary form because police can act on the owner’s behalf, Johnson said.
This push to sign comes after a Stephens College student, Aiyanna Williams, was shot dead early Saturday morning. Two other people were injured in the shooting.
The City of Columbia and MU leaders sent out an action plan to reduce crime Wednesday with 11 steps, one being the letter of enforcement.
Dimetrious Woods owns the EssentialZ vape shop at the corner of Ninth Street and East Broadway. His store is at the opposite end of the block to Williams’ memorial, which at the corner of Tenth Street and East Broadway.
Woods said he sees a lot of fights happen in front of his store.
“Being in a college town or downtown anywhere with alcohol and partying, things will get intense,” Woods said. “The gunfire is the main problem or robberies or things of that sort, when you have victims being inflicted upon, that’s when it becomes a problem.”
Woods also said he’s considering signing the letter of enforcement.
“It does get tiresome with Dimetrius being the enforcer, having to man the corner just to sell novelties and drinks and things of that sort,” Woods said.
MU President Mun Choi planned a city walk with other community leaders to see for themselves what Columbia is like at night.
The walk will start at 11 p.m. Saturday outside of Woods’ store and go until 3 a.m. Sunday morning.