Food, Music, Speeches and the Family of Murder Victims

Last Saturday, the friends and families of Kansas City’s murder victims crowded beneath the peaked pavilion in Swope Park. Some had opted to decorate plastic white chairs with photos and words for departed loved ones. Others just came to hear music, share food and be together to enjoy the last bit of the day’s sunlight.

Al Brooks, in a black fedora and black leather jacket, stood on a picnic bench and offered comforting words, as he’s done so many times before at so many of the funerals for homicide victims, though he said, “I don’t like to speak at funerals of homicide victims. I do it because you ask me to.” He closed with his familiar signature, “God is good all the time. All the time God is good.” Families of victims whose murders were still unsolved were invited to give Brooks their information.

The people under the pavilion were in different stages of grief. Some had lost family this year, part of KC’s 79 homicides so far in 2007. Others mourned for loved ones as though they died yesterday — even if they’d been gone longer.