Topeka homicides 2017

Topeka Kansas had 30 homicides in 2017. That is a record setting number. Of the 30 homicides, four have been ruled as justified so far.  The Topeka Capitol-Journal published that nine of the homicide investigations were still open at the end of the year.  Presumably, the Cazee-Watkins case was one of those. From cjonline.com:

Cazee-Watkins was arrested Thursday in connection with criminal possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and interference with a law enforcement officer (conceal/alter/destroy evidence). He is being held on a $20,000 bond.

“The death of Kenneth Vetaw was investigated simultaneously with the charged offenses,” Kagay said in an email. “The law enforcement investigation concluded the actions leading to Kenneth Vetaw’s death were committed in self-defense. Upon reviewing the results of the investigation, I concur that there was not sufficient evidence to file a homicide-related charge.” . . .

Kenneth Vetaw’s death is the city’s fourth homicide of last year’s 30 to be ruled justified.

The Capitol-Journal reported that three cases had unknown motives, 11 cases were gang related, five were domestic and six were “arguments”.

A Topeka police spokesman said most of the homicides involved people during “high-risk” activities.

One of the justified homicides was a police involved shooting. That leaves three cases, minimum, that were justified homicides by non-police.

While this sample is too small for large conclusions, the numbers fit well with the overall prediction that about 10% of all homicides are justified.

This is five times the number of justified homicides recorded in the FBI Uniform Crime Reports. The severe under-reporting of justified homicides by the FBI UCR system has been well documented.

In 2016, the number of homicides (murder, and non-negligent homicides) was reported at 15,070. The number of justified homicides reported by non-police was 331.

©2018 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included. Gun Watch

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18 COMMENTS

    • homicide. n. the killing of a human being due to the act or omission of another. Included among homicides are murder and manslaughter, but not all homicides are a crime, particularly when there is a lack of criminal intent.

      thefreedictionary.com

    • Are you trying to prove that gun control trolls are morons? Oh, wait…….

    • DrSchmancy

      .Medical doctor?

      Confusing justifiable homicide with murder would be the same as confusing an iatrogenic illness with medical malpractice.

      You shoot a man stabbing a child and he dies is somewhat different than if the child dies.

      • The doctor considers the killing of the child to be less of a crime than having a gun. He and his kind made the school massacres possible. They are enablers of atrocities.

    • Doc thinks ‘homocide’ is ‘murder.’ I can see how he’d confuse that, if he goes around reading gun control group stats all the time. They’re masters of mixing those terms, pretending there’s no one who ever deserved being killed out there.

    • An oxymoron is a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction

      Homicide is the act of one human killing another. A homicide requires only a volitional act by another person that results in death, and thus a homicide may result from accidental, reckless or negligent acts even if there is no intent to cause harm.

      Justifiable homicide is the killing of a person in circumstances that allow the act to be regarded in law as without criminal guilt.

    • so i am guessing from that DrSchmancy that if some asshole was trying to kill you, you would not raise a finger to defend yourself…… personally i call that suicidal tendencies and a doctor with suicidal tendencies is not one i would want anywhere near me

    • ” “Justifiable homicide” is an oxymoron. ” – said every lack of oxy moron, ever.

      Not just “justifiable homicides” are ‘necessary’.

      Sometimes S.O.B.N.K. (the S.O.B. Needed Killing).

      Only ‘more than 10%’ ? Man, they gotta dig deeper into those figures.

  2. See, that’s a 10% higher homocide rate than if the law abiding were disarmed. Gun control now!

    • But then again, if the disarmed law-abiding were killed, and their killers went on to kill others, that could add over 10% more homicides.

      DrDKW

  5. KC Ks.,Witchita, Topeka, Great Bend, Coffeyville, and Independence are the “bad”( meth and gangs) towns in Kansas. Those towns do not represent the rest as they are quite peaceful. I’ve lived here off and on for most of my life and have only been shot twice….. Topeka has a really nice zoo

      • Whoops, I always do dat, it’s for the witchita native americans. Shot in Parsons by a ganger for dissing him. And Dennis for cheating at cards, both small towns

        • You deserve to be shot for cheating at cards. Just sayin’.

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