JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

It’s been pretty serious around her the last couple of days, what with me slamming The Star’s baseball reporting one day and then reporting Steve Vockrodt’s switch from The Star to NPR the next. So, today, I’m going to lighten up and go with some random stuff that I know you’ll be interested in. (How do I know? I just do.)

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Have you noticed — leading question here — how difficult it is to get through to many businesses and organizations on the phone these days?

Two examples. Today, I got the name of a guy at Bank of America that I need to talk with about a City of Fountains Foundation matter. The person who gave me the guy’s name didn’t have his number, but I thought, “How hard could it be to reach a guy at one of the most prominent banks in town?”

Doing a Google search, I discovered that the downtown office of Bank of America had closed. So, I started calling branches of the bank, thinking, surely, whoever answered would be able to direct me to the guy I wanted to reach.

I called three branches, and at each number the phone rang several times before flipping to a voice message that started out, “Everyone is currently assisting customers…”

Oh, yeah, assisting customers. You know what they were doing…Most were either texting or surfing the web. And why should they bother to pick up that telephone that was ringing or buzzing nearby?

With some more Googling, I came across a document the guy had written, and at the bottom was his phone number and email address. I promptly called the number. You know what it went to…

He sounded kind of tired and beat down in his message, like he’d been assisting a lot of customers. I’ve been waiting by my phone all day, but nothing yet.

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Another blogger in town, Tony Botello, yesterday wrote a lead-in to a linked story about Main Street congestion, and his headline was “Kansas City Hates Poorly Planned Main Street Traffic Cone Maze.”

Now, I’ve heard a lot of comments about the Main Street work but very few complaints. That’s because the vast majority of KC residents understand this is short-term pain before we get a major civic and commercial improvement — the new streetcar line that will extend from Union Station to the western edge of the UMKC campus at 52nd and Brookside.

The current line, from Union Station to the River Market, has been phenomenally successful, and there’s no reason to think the extension will be any different. Will people want to ride from the River Market to the Plaza or even farther south? Well, hell yes! This is going to spur businesses along the extension and make Midtown streets safer, partly because many people will drink and ride instead of drink and drive.

Tony needs to get out of his mother’s basement, which last I heard was blog HQ, and look down the horizon.

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A few weeks ago, I did a photo post on the section of State Line Road between 75th Street and about 39th Street. The part between 75th and 71st has been particularly troublesome the last several years. It’s been humpty-bumpy, pot-holey and closed for maintenance quite frequently. It’s the main road I take to and from home because I try to avoid Ward Speedway.

Yesterday, it was closed again at 75th Street northbound, and I could see that the pavement had been stripped. Today it was open and the pavement had been stripped all the way to 71st. That means one thing: Repaving is going to be happening soon…Damn, life is good!

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On. Aug. 15, Kansas City Star editor and president Mike Fannin announced that the paper would be “hiring nearly a dozen new journalists” and nearly doubling its investigative team to nine reporters and three editors.

Today, however, one of the leading members of that investigative team, reporter Steve Vockrodt, confirmed in a phone call that his last day at The Star was Friday and that he would be joining NPR’s new “Midwest Newsroom,” a consortium of four stations, including Kansas City affiliate KCUR, on Wednesday.

“I feel good about it,” he said. “It’s a chance to try something new, try something different, and hopefully grow what I can do professionally.”

He added that he felt sad about leaving The Star. “They’ve been good to me,” he said.

Vockrodt, 39, has been The Star’s most productive investigative reporter since the paper hired him away from The Pitch five years ago. Where most members of the paper’s investigative team toil for months or even years on the same story, Vockrodt is more of a quick-strike researcher, turning around news-related investigations in a matter of days or a couple of weeks.

Vockrodt’s new title is investigative editor for the Midwest Newsroom, which consists of KCUR, St. Louis Public Radio, Iowa Public Radio out of Des Moines and Nebraska Public Media out of Lincoln. Technically, his employer will be St. Louis Public Radio, although he will be working primarily out of KCUR.

Holly Edgell, managing editor of the Midwest Newsroom, said she was eager to see Vockrodt “apply his reporting chops to the role as well as coach, lead and mentor other reporters.”

She added: “Steve’s journalistic and emotional intelligence are apparent to anyone who’s read his work and followed his career over the years. We are very excited that he’ll bring his ideas, investigative skills and integrity to amplifying important stories across the region.”

Vockrodt will be part of a five-member team headed by Edgell.

From the personnel standpoint, this is a big “scoop” for NPR and KCUR. Over the last 15 years, The Star has declined sharply under McClatchy ownership. KCUR, on the other hand, has steadily expanded over the last five to seven years and now is a stout challenger to The Star for the title of leading news source in the KC area.

KCUR has a staff of about 75 full- and part-time employees. Its annual budget is about $9 million, and it serves about 160,000 listeners in the area.

Vockrodt is just the latest of several big-name Star journalists to make the jump, at one point of their careers or another, to KCUR. Others have included Donna Vestal, a former Star business editor; Scott Canon, a former national reporter and editor; Dan Margolies, a business reporter; and, of course, political reporter Steve Kraske, who hosts KCUR’s popular Up-to-Date show.

A KCUR story last year said the four stations comprising the Midwestern hub would “coordinate and expand their local and regional reporting, providing stories to national news programs as well as the 25 public radio stations serving the four-state region.”

Vockrodt is a native of the Denver area. After graduating from the University of Kansas, he worked for a group of Northland papers before joining the Olathe Daily News. From there, he went to the Lawrence Journal-World, then it was back to Kansas City to the Business Journal, before going to The Pitch and then The Star.

The most recent story bearing Vockrodt’s byline led today’s KC Star website. It was titled “Kansas City awarding massive airport contract for restaurants, bars and shops in secret.”

Vockrodt resides in Fairway.

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I went to bed early last night and, unfortunately, missed Salvador Perez’ historic, second-game-in-a-row grand slam against the Seattle Mariners.

I read about it — and the Royals’ 12th inning victory — on kansascity.com when I got up this morning, but I’ve got to tell you it was an extremely disappointing read.

For years, The Star had a history of hiring great baseball writers, like Bob Nightengale (now a baseball columnist for USA Today) and Bob Dutton (now retired), but since 2018 it’s been a different story.

Just like the quality of the writing in the rest of the paper, the quality of Royals’ reports has gone south.

Perez became the first Royals’ player to hit home runs in consecutive games, and those two smashes were electrifying to Royals’ fans. Somehow, though, Royals’ beat writer Lynn Worthy managed to make it sound perfunctory.

Here’s how Worthy, who’s been on the beat the last three seasons, started his story about Perez’ heroics:

While in the midst of a career season and a year likely to make history for a player at the game’s most grueling position, Kansas City Royals All-Star catcher Salvador Perez has continued to attain new levels of amazement.

He has more home runs (three) than strikeouts (two) in his past three games dating back to Wednesday. In his last two games, he has four hits, eight RBIs, two grand slams and just one strikeout.

Perez became the 24th player in the history of the American and National leagues to hit grand slam home runs in back-to-back games when he hit one for the second consecutive night to help the Royals to an 8-7 extra-inning win on Friday night in Seattle.

Even more appalling was the caption on a photo accompanying Worthy’s story. The caption — which Worthy was not responsible for — read:

Kansas City Royals’ Salvador Perez points skyward as he heads home on his grand slam against the Seattle Mariners in the fourth inning of a baseball game Friday, Aug. 27, 2021, in Seattle.

Patty laughed out loud when she read that. She came into the house from the patio, screeching “…in the fourth inning of a baseball game?!”

Point being it was pretty obvious from the photo, with Perez rounding the bases with a grin on his face and his right index finger raised high, that this, indeed, was a baseball game.

Patty was equally disgusted with Worthy’s soporific account of the game, and I told her that just for fun I’d try to come up with a version that did justice to Perez’ feat.

So, I sat down at the computer and in about 15 minutes came up with this:

With the Royals trailing 5-1 against the Seattle Mariners last night and the bases loaded, Salvador Perez had the chance to become the first Royal ever to hit grand slams in back-to-back games.

On the third pitch from Logan Gilbert, Perez swung hard at a ball low and over the outside part of the plate. He connected, and the ball sailed deep toward centerfield. Mariners’ outfielder Jarred Kelenic ran back and climbed the wall but sank back in futility as the ball fell into the extended hands of fans a few rows up.

With one swing, Perez had not only set a Royals’ record but had tied the game and positioned the Royals to go on and win the game 8-6 in 12 innings.

“We’re watching an MVP-style season with what’s going on here with this guy,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said after the game.

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Now, I’m not going to run out and apply to become Royals’ beat writer for The Star — I’m sure most of the staff regards me as a pain in the ass anyway — but I ask you: Doesn’t that go a long way toward capturing the thrill of that event? And wouldn’t it make you want to go on reading?

That’s what the first sentence, or the first few sentences of a story are supposed to do — draw the readers in and “hook ’em” from the get-go.

Poor Lynn Worthy and poor KC Star…For the most part, they’ve lost one of the most important dimensions of reporting: vibrant writing.

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You can see Perez’ home run here.

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After a week in Cape Cod, it could have been time to head home, but, no, it was on to Chicago to meet up with friends from Louisville and visit our son Charlie, who’s been living there a couple of years and working at the University of Chicago Medical Center.

On Thursday, we caught a late flight from Logan to O’Hare, and by the time we got to our hotel and into the bed it was past midnight.

We had to fire up quickly Friday, however, because our friends from Louisville, Bill and Denise, had lined up tickets to the Royals-Cubs game at Wrigley Field.

This was only the second time I was at Wrigley. The first was many years ago, before the stadium had been improved and all home games were played in the daytime.

Let’s get to the photos…

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Decades ago, one of five branches of the Fitzpatrick family (my father and his four siblings) ended up in New England. It’s always been a bit perplexing to me how this branch of the family — which, like the rest of us, had its roots in Louisville — ended up so far away. But that’s what a good job with a big company — GE — will do.

Over the years, I’ve had several opportunities to visit the Boston area and Cape Cod, and I’ve come to really appreciate the best of New England, that is, Cape Cod.

Boston is okay, but I’d take Kansas City over it any day. At least two of the times we’ve been there, it’s been as hot or hotter than Kansas City, and the public transportation system is not good for a city its size — except for the Silver Line buses that run between the city and Logan International Airport.

Recently, we spent a week in Cape Cod for the second family reunion held there in recent years, and it was a wonderful and gratifying occasion. At one time I had six aunts and uncles and many cousins. I still have all but one of those cousins — the one died way too early — but I’m down to a single aunt in the generation ahead of me.

Aunt Nanette turned 91 earlier this year, and is in good health. She lives in Needham, outside of Boston, but one of her sons has a house in Yarmouth, in the mid-Cape area. Yarmouth was reunion headquarters, but Patty and I took the opportunity to drive all the way to Provincetown, at the eastern tip.

Here are some of the photos I took…

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Nearly two years ago, then-29-year-old Anthony J. Dorsey tried to elude the Kansas Highway Patrol, which had been pursuing him for an outdated vehicle registration, on westbound I-70.

When the chase, which had begun in Wyandotte County, neared the toll checkpoint just west of Kansas 7 in Leavenworth County, Dorsey wheeled his gray SUV around and began speeding east in the westbound lane.

More often than not, such situations end in big trouble, and this one did.

Nineteen-year-old Nathan Pena of Brookfield, IL, a western Chicago suburb, was heading west on the Turnpike, bound for Colorado to visit a friend. Pena saw the gray SUV do an about-face and start heading in his direction. In the seconds he had available, he whipped the steering wheel of his red vehicle to the right, toward the shoulder of the highway and a grassy incline.

As I wrote back on Oct. 7, 2019, Dorsey also took evasive action, but, maddeningly, he turned the same way. His SUV, larger than Pena’s vehicle, struck the red car nearly head on. Although Pena was wearing a seat belt, the impact killed him. And as sometimes happens in such tragedies, the bad guy was not seriously injured.

Dorsey was charged with first-degree murder, and it took nearly two years for resolution. This morning, in Leavenworth County District Court, Dorsey, now 31, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. He is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 17 and could get nearly 50 years in prison.

As it turned out, Dorsey had previous convictions for aggravated robbery and attempted aggravated robbery, and he was a parole violator at the time of the crash. There is no indication, however, that the highway patrol officer or officers giving chase knew at the time anything more than that the SUV had an expired plate.

The Star pointed out that the highway patrol policy at that time (I don’t know if it has changed) required the responding officer to undertake a pursuit only if he or she believed the risk to the public is lower than the immediate danger from the suspect remaining at large.

In this instance, obviously, the immediate risk to the public outweighed the danger posed by Dorsey remaining at large, at least for a while longer.

I’m not sure if the highway patrol continued the pursuit after Dorsey turned around. I hope not. In any event, the pursuit should have ended earlier. It had to be pretty clear to the officers Dorsey was only going to be stopped by a crash or — best case scenario — stop sticks.

I don’t think there’s a parent alive who would say, if it was their son or daughter who had died, that the continued pursuit was a good idea.

Among those left to grieve Pena’s loss were his parents Jennifer and Alex; sister Lauren; and grandfather John Pena and his wife Chris Meier and grandmother Alice Iankav.

Four days ago, having just learned of my October 2019 post, Jennifer Pena wrote me an email, saying, “The police were in the wrong for engaging this high-speed pursuit as well as the driver who fled police and killed my son.”

These are always judgment calls. But too often, up to this point, officers seem to err on the side of pursuit rather than public safety. The trend, and policies, needs to change.

In a story today about the Dorsey plea, The Star reported that between 2014 and 2019, at least six innocent people were killed and several others seriously injured in police pursuits throughout the metro area. The story said experts had told the paper that people evading police are more likely to reduce speed and drive less recklessly if they think police have stopped chasing them.

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Below the 2019 obituary that appeared on the website of the Hitzeman Funeral Home in Brookfield is a string of condolences.

A woman named Alexandra Montgomery wrote: “Nathan was an amazing person. I am beyond grateful and blessed to have known him. He made working at Best Buy a million times better. He always knew how to make me laugh and could always make me feel better. He is going to be greatly missed, but his spirit will live on.”

Another woman, Anna Eich, wrote: “Nathan was a good friend to my daughter Linnea when they were at Park (Junior High). They were in band together. I remember Nathan as a good and kind-hearted young man. My heart goes out to your entire family.”

What a tragedy…It shouldn’t have happened.

Note: On Friday, Sept. 17, Anthony Dorsey was sentenced to 49 years and four months in prison.

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It’s good news that Kansas City police have arrested one person in connection with the theft of Chinese artist Kwan Wu’s sculpture of an Osage woman from the Francois Chouteau Monument in Kansas City North, near Chouteau Trafficway and Parvin Road.

The arrest, probably the result of someone bragging about the theft, will discourage copycats.

The bad news is the 7-foot-tall, 400-pound sculpture was, predictably, found in pieces, having been sawed up with the intention of selling it for scrap.

The $80,000 sculpture might have brought $1,000 or so on the scrap market, assuming a dealer would have agreed to take the material. Bronze is 90 percent copper and 10 percent tin, thus its appeal to thieves.

Mark McHenry, a member of the organization that has been raising money for the not-completed monument, said most of the parts have been found and that if all are found, the local fabricator who constructed the sculpture originally might be able to reconstruct it.

But if pieces are missing, it would be considerably more difficult.

The theft has been the subject of much gnashing of teeth among us members of the City of Fountains Foundation, whose mission is to promote and advocate for fountains, sculptures and monuments primarily in Kansas City.

Our organization maintains endowments for about 40 fountains, sculptures and monuments, and the Chouteau endowment currently has about $100,000. It is possible some of that money could be used to reconstruct the Osage woman or, if that can’t be done, to replace it.

Although this is the most brazen case I’ve ever heard of relating to a sculpture or bronze theft, it’s hardly the first.

Fairly recently, I believe, a bronze plaque at the Children’s Fountain, also in the Northland, was wrenched from its base, and one of our board members, Jocelyn Ball-Edson, a former Parks Department manager, suggested it might have been “nicked as practice” by the same group that made off with the Osage woman.

Jocelyn recalled another incident years ago when four 7-foot-long plaques disappeared from the base of a tall flagpole in Swope Park. Jacob Loose, businessman and philanthropist, had donated the plaques in 1912. One of the plaques bore the text of the Declaration of Independence, another the words of The Star Spangled Banner and a third the text of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. The fourth was the dedication plaque.

Perhaps the most outrageous incident of outdoor art theft took place in 2005, when thieves used a crane to steal a 12-foot-bronze statue created by Henry Moore from the grounds of the sculptor’s former home near London.

The sculpture, called “Reclining Figure,” was worth an estimated $4.5 million. After an international hunt, police determined in 2009 that the piece was likely melted down, shipped abroad — first possibly to Rotterdam and then further east — and eventually sold for as little as $2,300.

It’s too bad that we have to worry about our public art being stolen instead of enjoyed. Jocelyn, of our board, said that back in the 1980s, a Parks Department supervisor once wrote a memo about the bronze plaques that were being stolen and suggested that the department should “just take everything down and put it all in storage until society improves.”

As Jocelyn then said in an email to me…we’re going to be waiting a long time for that.

Note: This post originally said police had arrested three people. As of Friday night, it is apparently just one person.

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It was very moving to see President Joe Biden talk today about the Congressional Gold Medals being awarded to the Capitol Police and D.C. Metropolitan Police Department for their heroic defense of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Biden spoke slowly, almost painfully. He looked intently at officers and others in the audience during the ceremony in the Rose Garden. At one point he brushed a tear from his left eye.

“We have to understand what happened…We have to face it,” he said.

During and after the signing ceremony, he chatted easily with every person who approached him. He also treated the children of officers on hand as if they were his own grandchildren, looking and speaking to them directly and occasionally putting a hand on one of their shoulders.

The emotional and physical toll the insurrection took on those officers that day is becoming ever clearer. Two police officers died by suicide in the days soon after the event, and a third officer, Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, collapsed and died after engaging with the protesters. Then, last week, the Metropolitan Police announced that two more officers who had battled the rioters had committed suicide. Officer Kyle DeFreytag was found dead on July 10 and Officer Gunther Hashida was found dead in his home a week ago today.

But the toll goes well beyond the dead. In a January 27 story in The Washington Post, former Kansas City Star reporter Tom Jackman unveiled these statistics…

:: About 65 Metropolitan Police officers were injured, including several who suffered concussions from head blows from various objects, such as metal poles ripped from inauguration-related scaffolding and a pole with an American flag attached. Others suffered swollen ankles and wrists, bruised arms and legs, and irritated lungs from bear and pepper spray.

:: At least 81 Capitol Police officers were assaulted during the siege, according to legal filings that did not detail specific types of injures.

:: Thirty-eight Capitol Police employees, mostly officers and supervisors who responded to the riot, tested positive for Covid-19.

…I have found it increasingly difficult to watch video clips of the pitched battle that day, seeing those officers fighting back against overwhelming odds. It’s come to the point I either avert my gaze or change stations, but I’m sure most of us have put ourselves in the shoes of those valiant officers and wondered what it would have been like and how there would have been no alternative but to fight.

And to hear those officers talk last week to members of the House Select Committee investigating the event brought home with no uncertainty the fragile state of mind many of those officers are now experiencing — and may experience for months or years.

Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn told the committee he was subjected to racial slurs — “fuckin’ nigger,” to be precise — and physically assaulted and has been in counseling since the event.

The House hearing made me so proud of those officers and so grateful for the incredible fight they put up against a mob of crazed and crazy people, many of them thugs — including some female thugs.

At the same time, it is galling that the Capitol Police administrators did not adequately present a strong enough force that day, even though they had information indicating an onslaught might be coming.

It is also galling that after the riot began some high-rankers at the Pentagon — some with ties to Donald Trump — intentionally dragged their feet and delayed sending in troops.

The whole thing was galling and shameful. And who paid the price? The officers on that painfully thin front line, most of whom had never been subjected to anything like that. No wonder many of them will never be the same.

At least now, after today, people will be reminded of those officers’ heroism when they see Congressional Gold medals displayed at the Capitol Police headquarters, the Metropolitan Police Department, the U.S. Capitol and the Smithsonian Institution.

Biden put it in context today, when he said: “My fellow Americans, let’s remember what this was all about. It was a violent attempt to overturn the will of the American people, to seek power at all costs, to replace the ballot with brute force.”

He also said something that, over time, must drown out the alternate reality the sheep herders at Fox News are continually trying to prod into the minds of their hopelessly lost flock.

“We cannot allow history to be rewritten.”

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