From the Alvin and Rosalie Sara Check studio.

PBS Kansas Presents Kansas Week on this edition of Kansas Week.

The fifth inmate death at the Sedgwick County Jail has the KBI investigating.

Also, Governor Laura Kelly is taking a stand on the president's deployment of National Guard troops to fight crime in major cities.

But first, a violent holiday weekend rocks Wichita, leaving three people dead.

Did a critical failure of surveillance cameras hamper one of the investigations?

We'll discuss these stories and more.

Right now on Kansas Week.

Hello and welcome to Kansas Week.

I'm Jared Cirillo.

A violent Labor Day weekend in Wichita leaves three people dead and several others critically injured in three separate shootings.

The violence began early Monday in Old Town, where 23 year old man was killed.

The investigation was initially hampered, according to the Wichita Eagle, because city owned surveillance cameras in the area were not working.

But Wichita police say they have now arrested the man, Lafayette, Washington, for suspicion of First-Degree murder.

Another shooting on Labor Day was the result of a dispute outside a North Broadway liquor store that left one man dead and three others wounded.

Hours later, another shooting near 21st and R, Kansas killed one man and left another critically injured.

Here to discuss this and some of this week's other big stories, we have a full panel.

Sedgwick County Commissioner Jeff Luba, former Wichita mayor Brandon Whipple, former Goddard mayor Hunter Larkin, and former Wichita mayoral candidate and community activist Brock Booker.

Thank you all for joining us today.

Mayor, I'll start with you.

This is no.

You're no stranger to talking about crime.

And it seems like crime in Wichita has gone up significantly in the last couple of years.

What's your take on this?

So, I mean, we really got to look at the data as far as not to sound like a nerd.

But as far as, what's causing, crime and what's changed?

I do know that when, Jeff and I were on the, the, Wichita City Council, we made some really historical investments and crime prevention programs that were operated by nonprofits in the community.

I think last time I checked, there were about $5 million worth of, programs that we worked hand in hand, with the nonprofit community that were supposed to help us, particularly with the youth violence.

Right now, the last time I checked, I think the current budget has less than a million in there.

So I think that, one of the problems is going to be not just policing afterwards, but also is the more we could be doing, with prevention.

And can we go back and figure out what worked last time?

You know, a few years ago, really well, so that we can at least get those programs invested in.

Yeah.

And, Brock, let me move over to you.

I think that the overall discussion here needs to be about the crime rate in Wichita.

Obviously, we had three serious situations this past holiday weekend, but what is your take?

Do you do you feel like in Wichita that the overall crime rate is increasing?

Most definitely.

Jared.

And there is definitely an uptick all around the city.

And I think that we've got to do more, you know, in the way of getting more community by.

And I think when I pass, city recreation centers, many times they're closed in the evening or throughout the summer, if they could be opened up for open gym, basketball, weightlifting, things that can improve or solve some of those things for our youth to do.

Yeah.

We hear this all the time from our young people that there's nothing to do in Wichita.

Commissioner blue ball, let me move over to you.

You were you were on the Wichita City Council as well.

City of Wichita has a relatively new police chief.

Do you think he's tackling this problem well?

Or how could he do it any better?

You know, when we look at the data, the overall crime stats, I do believe that things are moving in the right direction.

But what spikes it right now is these violent crimes.

And you don't look at all the trends and you realize we have too much violent crime and what is happening?

It's the young people.

It's the teenagers.

I heard the, D.A.

Bennett speak here at a, function here recently, and he talked about, you know, I would like to try a case where it's just a couple 30 year olds get into a bar fight and somebody shoots.

You don't hear that?

It's not a couple 30 year olds.

It's teenagers.

It's people that should not have guns in their hands to begin with.

And that's where we've got to focus the attention.

What's the problem there?

What's going on there with that young demographic resorting to violence?

Are there enough community programs out there to help figure this out?

Probably not.

And I do believe that you know, the county we've got some responsibility with, with some of the juvenile detention, some of the process that we have right now, we've got to really focus on, on.

I think that is the biggest thing we can do to control some of this element.

Former Goddard mayor Hunter Larkin.

What's your take on this?

Well, we didn't have that many problems.

And Goddard, of course, small town.

Goddard America.

But after I left Goddard, I moved downtown at the old Eaton Hotel building.

So I've been downtown for two years now, and I do see that things are getting a little bit worse.

And remember the old 1980s commercial where the guy put a little butter in the pan and he lifts it up an egg and he says, this is your brain.

And he cracks the egg in the patties.

It's, this is your brain on drugs.

Well, I don't know what's causing all these problems, but there's something going on with the brain.

Some things affect for you to pull out a gun and shoot somebody.

You're not thinking right.

Something's wrong.

Something's terribly wrong.

And, you know, I remember as a young reporter when I started reporting in Wichita in the early 90s, the gangs were taking hold and the crime rate was skyrocketing in Wichita in the early 90.

I don't think we're at that point, but I'm, you know, I'm still in the news business, and I'm certainly hearing of shootings and stabbings almost every single night, you know, scary like broke.

Anything had anything to add?

Well, it's, it's it's interesting.

You know, I don't always go to Old Town, but you hear about, different club shootings issues there.

And there's been many things that the city has put into place in the way of cameras, officers on different horseback.

You know, it's like.

It's like, do we really have to go to all of these measures?

Why can't we all just.

You know, find a way to behave, get along, you know, better.

Quote Rodney King, right?

Like.

Yeah.

All right, but go ahead.

I just want to add, because, I think, the mayor made a very good point about, mental health and also with my, my colleague, blue ball, talked about the age of some of these people, teenagers.

If we know this now, you know, your brain isn't fully developed until you're actually in your 20s.

And, so, you know, what we have is young people who have less opportunity, to Japanese programs as, Bach mentioned, and frankly, we're seeing a rise in mental health.

We're seeing, a trend with some of these young folks.

And sadly, we're seeing access to firearms, which these young folks and I agree, my colleague that shouldn't have access to these firearms.

You have to think that the fentanyl crisis has something to do with this in here somewhere, too, you know?

Well, organized crime, I think, allows for much more, weapons to, to get out in the streets rather stolen from cars and from some of these, other opportunities that were created when you have people who are not responsible or even criminal.

But, yeah.

I just wanted to highlight some of the comments that were made.

I think that that's something that policymakers should be taking into account.

And the debate over how to best fight violent crime is now at the center of a new fight between the nation's governors and the white House.

Kansas Governor Laura Kelly is among a group of Democratic governors who are pushing back against President Trump's threats to deploy the National Guard into cities like Chicago.

In a joint statement, the 19 governors called the president's actions, quote, chaotic federal interference and an alarming abuse of power.

They argue that the president is trying to undermine their authority as commander in chief, setting up a major constitutional showdown.

I'll start with you.

This is, you know, this seems to be, interesting because a federal judge actually ruled that President Trump was wrong in violating an 1800s law regarding, Posse comitatus, I believe, you know, and so tell me your thoughts on on the National Guard being used.

You know, I, I believe in the rule of law.

However, you know, there has to be a basis.

The rationale, you know, first, when you enter into, a certain territory or a city, and you want to get consent, I believe, somewhat from a governor, from a mayor before you just show up.

And, for whatever reason, do you think President Trump is doing that?

Somewhat.

Somewhat.

But I'd like to hear what the others have to say.

But I think first that Gavin Newsom might disagree.

Yes, yes, he's got a different feel on it all quite, quite a bit.

But you know, Commissioner Bluebonnet, you know, I don't know that we need the National Guard here in Wichita, Kansas.

Sedgwick County, Goddard in any of our local area.

But I do believe there's more we can be doing.

And some of the initiatives we worked on.

Whenever I was on council with mayor Whipple is the real time crime center getting cameras out there.

We've already heard one story where we had a failed surveillance camera out there, and when I went down to Fort Worth, Texas, here a couple of years ago, they have 900 cameras all over Fort Worth, and it really, officers can't be everywhere at same time.

But you know where the hotspots are.

You know where the shootings are.

You know where the violence.

Or at least we can get someone quicker.

There and start to monitor those areas.

And I do think the real time crime Center is a step in the right direction, rather than deploying the National Guard locally.

Yeah.

Mayor, tell me your thoughts on deploying the National Guard.

I don't understand why Lady Laura's so concerned about Trump when she's dumping 66% of her Department of Corrections people.

Is that correct?

You were the former mayor.

66%, I believe, is getting dumped here in Wichita that she's picking up throughout the state prisoners, former prisoners that you're talking about being from there.

So, I mean, we're talking about crime.

We're talking about problems.

Well, let's focus on our community.

Let's see the these problems are not problems, political problems.

They're problems that you need to be in the streets.

You need to be fixing these problems and you need to actually care.

So quit making it about politics.

Fighting with the Donald, okay?

Fix the problems.

So is President Trump's strategy going to work?

Well, it looks like it's working in DC now.

I'm not advocating that we bring in the National Guard into Wichita, but sometimes when you're the strongman, you get things done.

So well.

Let me just kind of piggyback on this because we had situations, where, there were conversations about, where we need guard troops.

When I was mayor, and, you know, former, police chief, told me, frankly, that they're not interchangeable, in that it's it almost feels like we're not giving the full respect to police officers in the amount of training that they go through when we just assume, or policymakers, assume that you can interchange a, reservist, with or a National Guard, with a police officer, especially in Wichita.

And we're we're not sending the guard, which I understand, but, cities like Wichita, we have the highest, level of training for our folks.

We have the best, training for police officers.

That was one of the issues when I was mayor is if you were, in Goddard, you could as a police officer, you can just transfer to Wichita.

You have to do more training.

So, you know, policing has its own science, its own art.

And I worry if we think that someone, with more of a military background is going to be able to just step in there without training, and there have been discussions about what you just said, the militarization of police over the last 20 to 30 years to begin with.

Just does this look like there has been the argument, said that this looks like federal troops are occupying our communities.

Would you agree with that, Brock?

You know, I would like to see more of how this plays out.

But in some cases, yes.

In the situation that was in LA, where Marines were, called up to our public streets and, you know, again, what is the basis, the full rationale for when, federal troops are called in to, surveillance and police are on people and the basis there was to help with immigration, issues.

But and then the argument was, well, you're taking away our labor from the farm fields and the hospitality industry, and it's it's definitely a sticky subject, for sure.

We'll move on to our next story.

The Sedgwick County Sheriff's Office is investigating another death at the county jail.

A 63 year old inmate was recently found unresponsive in his cell late Tuesday night, and was later pronounced dead at a hospital.

The sheriff's office says the preliminary evidence indicates that the death was a suicide.

The man had been in custody since June for charges including aggravated assault.

This marks the fifth In-custody death at the Sedgwick County Jail this year, and has prompted an investigation by the KBI.

Commissioner blue Ball, I'll come to you first in this part of now since you're here at the Sedgwick County Commission and have oversight of that area, tell me your thoughts on this here.

I really can't comment on this specifically.

It just happened.

It's under investigation.

But I do know any time we have an issue like that, the sheriff calls in an independent organization.

The CBI's investigating this right now.

Anything outside of a natural caused deaths in the Sedgwick County Jail is investigated by a third party.

I'll wait to hear the findings from that.

But we do, you know, hate to see that.

And it's happening way too much, unfortunately.

And, we've got to ensure everyone's safety.

And I've been to the jail to sheriff.

I think he does a good job there.

But there's a lot of violent people in the county jail.

And I don't mean to put you on the spot here, but, I we the story said we've had five deaths at the jail so far this year.

Do you know how that compares to previous years?

I don't know, I know historically we've all we've all known that there's been a lot of violence in there.

I don't know specifically year, year over year, but it does seem like it's increasing.

But I, you know, I really haven't.

I guess I haven't heard of anything singular or any kind of root cause that, hey, this this particular action's happening over and over again.

Brock, does this bring up an issue of maybe being understaffed at the jail?

Always, you know, always, staffing issues, you know, and I think about kind of in the previous conversation, why not?

Is there more peer support in and mental health care services that can be used inside the jail?

The facility, and and I it has some overtones of the situation with Sedgwick Lofton a bit.

Yeah.

In some ways, but you never know what the whole all the facts are.

So that's why we have to wait until the courts and things do their job.

Yeah, I do believe crime brings up a good point, because once we get to the mental health hospital open, you know, 5 to 75% of the people in there are going to come out of the Sedgwick County Jail because a lot of the people in the Sedgwick County jail should not be in jail, should not be they should be in a mental health hospital, right?

Yeah.

Mayor Whipple, tell me your thoughts.

I mean, I don't know the details, obviously.

I my governmental spider senses, are are similar to Brock's instincts here about, first it goes to staffing.

Are we fully staffed?

Do we have appropriate, cameras or visualization of what's going on?

I do agree that we, sadly, in this country and in Wichita, especially until we get our hospital, one of the biggest, suppliers of mental health aid has been jails, and it's the most expensive way to deal with folks who are in a mental health crisis.

And it is the worst way, as far as outcomes.

So, my thought goes to.

And I have nothing to basis on yet.

It's just instinctive that we probably I look at staff and also procedure.

Did something happen where someone who was supposed to be watching, got distracted with, with a different situation.

So luckily there is a party that's a third party.

It's going to do the investigation and come back with the facts.

And, you know, I think that, our, county commission, whose, I think you guys control the sheriff's budget.

Yeah.

But you guys clear the budget.

You might have to, attend some needs, but.

Yeah.

Hunter Larkin, tell me your thoughts.

Well, I think it gets back to the mental health issue, but what's the causation of the mental health?

Primarily, it's drugs.

Right.

We have a problem in our town.

The drugs.

We don't need them on our streets, not on any other city, and not like any other city.

But we have a problem, right?

And you gotta start at the root cause to fix it.

And now that the abandoned the rest, the the game plan.

No.

But you also have to start looking in the very beginning.

So.

All right.

New federal rules are now in effect that could change where Kansas gets its power and how much you pay for it.

The guidelines limit future tax credits for green energy projects.

While Evergy says it recently approved solar farms will still qualify, the future for new renewable projects is now less certain.

The tax credits were designed to make solar and wind power more cost competitive with natural gas.

Now, consumer advocates are worried that utilities may shift away from renewables, potentially relying more on fossil fuels in the future.

You know, I don't know Hunter Larkin.

I don't think this is any denial that this is a trend of how the presidential policies are going nationally with Donald Trump's agenda.

Well, coal clean coal seems to be doing pretty good and oil is doing pretty good all there.

Such a thing is clean for sure.

There is.

The coal plants are doing better than ever.

Actually, the way they operate and everything.

The oil business is pretty good.

Solar.

I got no problem with solar now.

Wind.

It doesn't seem to be pretty effective.

You have to subsidize when heavily, but ultimately we need more power.

So whether you put a solar, you put a coal, you do the oil.

I don't care.

We need energy.

And I'm all for producing what type of energy we can get.

Mayor Whipple the the the thing that I want to make sure we talk about is how this affects the consumer, how this affects Joe Average citizen who has to pay for the electricity and evergy no matter what happens.

It seems like Evergy is always raising rates.

They've had a rate increase every year for the last 25 years, sometimes twice a year.

So how does this affect the average consumer?

So I mean, first of all, it's never been more expensive to be a Kansan than it is today.

The cost of everything is going up.

And the tariffs aren't helping.

And I think that, you know, we're seeing, consumers who are getting very upset.

We saw that at the last election.

But it hasn't gotten much easier.

When it comes to energy, we're also using more energy today than at any point in our history.

And we're talking about, not just lighting up your house, but also with AI and different, technology that's coming online.

So with that said, you got to have an all of the above approach, to producing energy.

And in our state, if there's a way to lower the prices because you have flooded the energy grid with with, energy and it's coming from solar, we should be doing more of it.

When energy if, if there's a way that we can make that even more profitable, then I think that those are, ways that Kansas can get a piece of the pie.

When it comes to that energy market.

Brock Booker, tell me your thoughts.

Do you agree with these federal guidelines that are seeming to push away, cleaner, renewable energy sources?

From what I'm understanding, they they might they're still going to allow those solar panels and things to come online.

With the new legislation.

I am I know I'll take some slack from my conservative friends.

But I am a fan of renewable energy, and alternative sources of energy.

I think we need to have a holistic approach when it comes to, keeping cost at a minimum, if you can say that, or at bay for the average consumer and then on and just as for globally, how we're being more effective in the energy and how much we are using, you know, Commissioner, you know, you know, right now, Sedgwick County has a moratorium on on all right, having any more solar out there.

When I look at the model, whether it's wind, whether it's solar, it needs to stand on its own two legs.

It can't just be built on subsidies.

But some of my frustrations and the business models I've seen is it's to generate power to sell to networks outside of our area.

And that's a frustration to me where you're asking us for a subsidy, and then you're going to sell power to somewhere else in the country.

Yeah, or even solar farms that pop up in far southwestern Kansas.

And they're shipping that electricity to eastern Missouri.

It's not getting used to.

You have to go into the grid, though.

No, I'm not that I not that I know I'm sure it has to go.

Percentage of it.

Sure, but not all of it.

But but there are some areas where solar works.

Absolutely, absolutely.

The zoo.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You guys put panels up.

Oh, last we need to move on to our last story.

Now, a new lease on life could be coming for Wichita's former downtown library, the city now moving forward with a plan to turn the first floor of the long vacant building into an event venue.

The Wichita City Council approved $2 million from the transient guest tax to fund the necessary renovations.

The move paves the way for the space to be used for weddings and corporate events.

After an earlier proposal to use the building for a police headquarters failed to gain support.

Is this.

I'll start with you two over here.

Since you were both on the Wichita City Council, is this too little, too late there?

Or last I checked, there were at least 15 to 17 event venues already within 1 or 2 mile radius.

How is the city not already trying to invest in a saturated market?

Yes, I get that.

We're trying to do something with a vacant building in a very important vacant building.

But is this too little, too late?

So I think it's never too late to take action on something that that needs to get done.

We have to do something with this building.

I am not against it, trying it out as an event center, because, you know, what you want to do in public policy is if that doesn't work, well, what else could you do?

What's next idea?

I was against the idea of turning it into a police station.

For one of the reasons is it's all glass light.

You know, we don't want someone shooting into it.

But also, it's kind of a because it's all glass with the books out.

If you've been in it recently, it's kind of a cool building.

So it it's supposed to.

You want public policy to make sense when you do this type of stuff?

And you do have, you know, you have the, century to over here.

You have, hotels over here.

If you have that library and you can make that useful, with visitors as well, and take take advantage of the parking, it might make sense, as part of the mix there.

But I haven't seen the latest studies on it.

Commissioner Bluebonnet, mayor Whipple and I served together.

We put out RFP.

We tried to bring in different ideas.

I.

And I'm okay with testing the venue idea.

The thing is, I don't want to see any major modification to the building until we figure out what we're doing or to what the future of the riverfront is.

I just wouldn't want any drastic modifications.

Let me ask both of you.

This local watchdog, Celeste Reset, wants to move visit Wichita into the upper floors, which she says could save the city millions of dollars.

Tell me your thoughts.

My thoughts are visit Wichita already spends a lot of a lot of money that comes into the t bid into the guest transit tax.

And if there's any way we can lean that out and ensure that we're spending that money to generally promote Wichita and bring Wichita here, I'm up for those ideas.

I mean, you got a I get, so this has been set up for a long time.

The reality is, if you look at where visit Wichita offices out of.

It's as big as this room, maybe, how would that make sense to give them an entire library?

If they have, like, three people in the office.

So, like, I get it.

And I think what she's trying to do is to bring some of that local tax money back into a local building.

But a more practical idea, if you but also, I think kind of the silly one would be, why don't you just move them into the current library?

They only need a few rooms, like, but the idea of giving them the whole upper floor of this huge building doesn't seem like a good use of money.

In about 30s Brock as a community member, what do you think about this idea?

I think that we've got to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.

However, I think we need an approach that we've got parking coming online in downtown.

We need to finish the job there first and make sure that that's running smoothly, effectively, before we dive too heavily into finding out and let studies run on what the venue would be best served under Mark in 15 seconds.

If you develop things, you have to have a clear vision on where you want to go, but you want things to be put in certain spots, right?

So the only thing I recommend to County City is you all got to be on the same page on where you're going.

All right.

That's a wrap for this week.

Thank you to Jeff Lovell, Brandon Whipple, Hunter Larkin and Brock Booker for being here.

We'll see you next week.