‘I feel hopeless’: Café broken into twice in less than a week

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - Two break-ins in one week for a local café favorite has the co-owner pleading for change.

Burglars hit both Mildred’s cafe locations, which are less than a mile apart.

The co-owner, Evan Ashby told KCTV5 he is beyond frustrated and wants to see something done about it.

“I feel hopeless,” Ashby said. “I said it last week; it seems like if you have a glass door front, you are on a hit list, and less than a week later, my other store got hit.”

The hit happened Sunday morning around 3:30. In the surveillance video, two people broke in and headed straight to the back office. They take around $1,200.

“This pattern is really becoming daunting and really quite obvious,” Ashby said. “I plead to the officials and the powers that be to really figure something out.”

In a blog post on Sept. 7, Jackson County Prosecutor, Jean Peters Baker wrote that so far this year, KD has sent 126 burglary cases to her desk. As of July 28, she’s charged 106 of those. That’s 84%.

However, she went on to note that each year, KD reports nearly 3,000 burglary cases.

KCTV5 asked her about the recent break-ins in a public meeting on Friday.

“We are all feeling that lack of public safety,” Peters Baker said. “We feel the pressure just like the community does.”

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KD officer Alayna Gonzalez told KCTV5 they realize the discrepancy brought up in Peters Baker’s blog. In response, she told KCTV5 that each investigation takes time.

“Sometimes, that is because we work with them collectively throughout the course of an investigation, and it’s a constant back and forth between their office and our investigators and sometimes we just come to the conclusion that we don’t have enough evidence to sufficiently provide them a case that is going to be good for prosecution,” Gonzalez said. “We investigate for thoroughness and efficiency and not expediency ensuring we are doing our best investigative work for the victims of crimes within our city.”

Gonzalez also said within the last week, they’ve added four more foot patrol officers to hot spot areas.

“What we are trying to do is analyze everything that is taking place, why this is taking place, what these patterns are looking like, and then get those officers in those areas during times where these peak problems are occurring,” Gonzalez said. “We are trying to be proactive in making sure that we have more presence in the areas where we are really being impacted heavily by crime.”

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In her post, Peters Baker also states that there’s no need to point fingers but to find better solutions by working together instead.

“What we are really doing that the community should know is that we are collaborating at a high level,” Peters Baker said. “I have been a prosecutor for a long time, and we have never collaborated to this degree.”

In the meantime, Ashby warned others to be proactive in preventing these criminals.

“This is going to continue to happen. Try to make it when it does happen to you, they don’t take valuables,” Ashby said.

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