Platte County Prosecuting Attorney Eric Zahnd this week gave commissioners his annual update on crime in Platte County.
From Nov. 1, 2023 through Oct. 31, the prosecutor’s office filed 695 felony cases and 7,754 misdemeanors. In the previous year, the office filed 661 felonies and 8,028 misdemeanors. There was a slight increase in felony crime and a slight decrease in misdemeanors.
Zahnd said in 2015 there were 478 felony filings, so there has been a 45 percent increase in felony crime over the past decade. Currently, the prosecutor’s office is handling 21 homicide cases – more than they’d ever had before.
Those cases are becoming more complex, he said, with almost half of those cases involving vehicular homicide.
“If I go all the way back to when I became prosecuting attorney in 2003, we could go a whole year without a homicide – not anymore,” Zahnd said.
A large part of this is due to the increase in population in Platte County over the past 20 years, he said, but violent crime across the country is up.
“This entire nation has become a more violent nation and Platte County is not immune from that violence,” Zahnd said.
The legalization of marijuana has been a double-edged sword, he said. Prosecutions for possession of marijuana have been reduced, but DUI cases involving drivers high on marijuana have increased and some of those vehicular homicide cases involve marijuana.
The report veered into a discussion on jail population, with Zahnd stating that those imprisoned awaiting trial are primarily there for more serious crimes. Misdemeanor offenders are typically incarcerated for shorter periods of time and then bond out to await trial.
Presiding Commissioner Scott Fricker pointed out that a 45 percent increase in serious crime over the past 10 years seems to outpace the county’s population growth. Zahnd agreed and said that problem is not unique to Platte County as a suburban ring county. Nationwide, the violence that used to be localized in the urban core is spreading to the suburbs.
“For the first 12 years I was prosecutor, we didn’t have one shooting during a drug deal,” Zahnd said. Now, there are typically a few a year.
Zahnd also thanked the commission for giving the prosecutor’s office more space as part of an ARPA-funded major reconfiguration of the county complex.
“It only took 22 years,” he said, noting that he’d told the previous commission when he first took office that the prosecutor’s office needed more space.
TRAIL EXPANSIONS CONTINUE
At the Monday, Nov. 18 meeting, commissioners approved professional services agreements between the county and Renaissance Infrastructure Consulting for design of Seven Bridges Trail and Park, helping to connect the Seven Bridges neighborhood to the larger county trail system. Another agreement with Renaissance will cover design work for the Running Horse Road Trail connector.
Several appointments were also made at that meeting. Chris Wright was appointed to the MARC Board of Directors, Rae Kingsley to the Community Action Agency, Jacob Wilson to Midwest Small Business Finance, Jeff Koski and Adam Tholen to the Board of Services for Disability Resources and Aaron Jung to the Mid-Continent Library Board of Directors.