The Kansas City Investigation

The Kansas City Investigation
Author: Rudolph H. Hartmann
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
Total Pages: 203
Release: 1999
Genre: History
ISBN: 0826263240

Kansas City political boss Thomas J. Pendergast's reign came to an end in 1939, after an investigation led by Special Agent Rudolph Hartmann of the U.S. Department of the Treasury resulted in Pendergast's conviction for income tax evasion. In 1942, Hartmann's report was submitted to Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, in whose papers it has remained for the past fifty-six years. While researching the relations between Pendergast & Franklin D. Roosevelt, Robert H. Ferrell came across Hartmann's landmark report-the only firsthand account of the investigation that brought down the greatest political machine of its time. Reading like a popular "whodunit," The Kansas City Investigation traces Pendergast's life in political power from his roots as a young bookkeeper to his demise as one of America's most infamous crime bosses. Pendergast's influence was at its height in 1936 when his power reached not merely to every precinct & ward in Kansas City but also to the statehouse in Jefferson City & Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. It was during this time that Pendergast took a massive bribe-$460000-from 137 national fire insurance companies operating within Missouri, opening him to attack by his enemies. Early in 1938, President Roosevelt received a tip from Missouri Governor Lloyd C. Stark regarding Pendergast's illegal bribe. Although the president had at one time been a supporter of Pendergast, he now considered Stark a more important political ally. Roosevelt in turn asked the Treasury Department to investigate Pendergast. The intelligence unit of the Treasury Department put Hartmann, its best operative, on the case. Within a year Hartmann & his agents had found enough evidence to set the ball rolling toward Boss Tom's demise. More than a simple account of the collapse of the Pendergast machine, The Kansas City Investigation takes the reader on a mysterious ride through the twists & turns of this intriguing investigation, all from an insider's perspective. More important, Hartmann's report provides historians & readers alike the opportunity to evaluate the machine era in American political history-an era that, according to the investigation, "proved the old axiom that 'Truth is stranger than fiction.'"

Precious Few Clues

Precious Few Clues
Author: Marla Bernard
Publisher: WildBlue Press
Total Pages: 198
Release: 2023-04-11
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1957288922

On an unseasonably warm April evening in 2001, the headless body of a tiny girl was found discarded in a makeshift dump site in the woods on the southeast side of Kansas City, Missouri. One long night turned into four long years for Sgt. David Bernard and the Kansas City Police Department’s 1020 Squad. They followed 1,500 leads, had a replica of the child’s head sculpted from her skull, and ultimately conducted the single most extensive area canvass in the KCPD's history. Erica Michelle Marie Green, aka “Precious Doe,” captured the hearts of not only the dedicated detectives who fought tirelessly to identify her and her killer but of an entire community. PRECIOUS FEW CLUES is a candid and touching account of the painful impact that this brutal murder had on Sgt. Bernard, his family, and the KCPD’s 1020 squad. It chronicles the all too frequent story of child abuse, failed social services, a flawed court system, and battered women who sacrificed their own children to shield their abusive lovers, echoing the same preposterous explanations of “...but I love him.”

Wide-Open Town

Wide-Open Town
Author: Diane Mutti Burke
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2018-11-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 0700627065

Kansas City is often seen as a mild-mannered metropolis in the heart of flyover country. But a closer look tells a different story, one with roots in the city’s complicated and colorful past. The decades between World Wars I and II were a time of intense political, social, and economic change—for Kansas City, as for the nation as a whole. In exploring this city at the literal and cultural crossroads of America, Wide-Open Town maps the myriad ways in which Kansas City reflected and helped shape the narrative of a nation undergoing an epochal transformation. During the interwar period, political boss Tom Pendergast reigned, and Kansas City was said to be “wide open.” Prohibition was rarely enforced, the mob was ascendant, and urban vice was rampant. But in a community divided by the hard lines of race and class, this “openness” also allowed many of the city’s residents to challenge conventional social boundaries—and it is this intersection and disruption of cultural norms that interests the authors of Wide-Open Town. Writing from a variety of disciplines and viewpoints, the contributors take up topics ranging from the 1928 Republican National Convention to organizing the garment industry, from the stockyards to health care, drag shows, Thomas Hart Benton, and, of course, jazz. Their essays bring to light the diverse histories of the city—among, for instance, Mexican immigrants, African Americans, the working class, and the LGBT community before the advent of “LGBT.” Wide-Open Town captures the defining moments of a society rocked by World War I, the mass migration of people of color into cities, the entrance of women into the labor force and politics, Prohibition, economic collapse, and a revolution in social mores. Revealing how these changes influenced Kansas City—and how the city responded—this volume helps us understand nothing less than how citizens of the age adapted to the rise of modern America.

Kansas City Cover-Up

Kansas City Cover-Up
Author: Julie Miller
Publisher: Harlequin
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2015
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0373698267

Reporter Gabriel Knight teams up with Kansas City Police Department's detective Olivia Watson to investigate a cold case involving Gabriel's fiancée.

The Encyclopedia of Research Methods in Criminology and Criminal Justice, 2 Volume Set

The Encyclopedia of Research Methods in Criminology and Criminal Justice, 2 Volume Set
Author: J. C. Barnes
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 967
Release: 2021-09-08
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1119110726

The Encyclopedia of RESEARCH METHODS IN CRIMINOLOGY & CRIMINAL JUSTICE The most comprehensive reference work on research designs and methods in criminology and criminal justice This Encyclopedia of Research Methods in Criminology and Criminal Justice offers a comprehensive survey of research methodologies and statistical techniques that are popular in criminology and criminal justice systems across the globe. With contributions from leading scholars and practitioners in the field, it offers a clear insight into the techniques that are currently in use to answer the pressing questions in criminology and criminal justice. The Encyclopedia contains essential information from a diverse pool of authors about research designs grounded in both qualitative and quantitative approaches. It includes information on popular datasets and leading resources of government statistics. In addition, the contributors cover a wide range of topics such as: the most current research on the link between guns and crime, rational choice theory, and the use of technology like geospatial mapping as a crime reduction tool. This invaluable reference work: Offers a comprehensive survey of international research designs, methods, and statistical techniques Includes contributions from leading figures in the field Contains data on criminology and criminal justice from Cambridge to Chicago Presents information on capital punishment, domestic violence, crime science, and much more Helps us to better understand, explain, and prevent crime Written for undergraduate students, graduate students, and researchers, The Encyclopedia of Research Methods in Criminology and Criminal Justice is the first reference work of its kind to offer a comprehensive review of this important topic.

Oklahoma City

Oklahoma City
Author: Andrew Gumbel
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 628
Release: 2012-04-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 0062100920

In the early morning of April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh drove into downtown Oklahoma City in a rented Ryder truck containing a deadly fertilizer bomb that he and his army buddy Terry Nichols had made the previous day. He parked in a handicapped-parking zone, hopped out of the truck, and walked away into a series of alleys and streets. Shortly after 9:00 A.M., the bomb obliterated one-third of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 people, including 19 infants and toddlers. McVeigh claimed he'd worked only with Nichols, and at least officially, the government believed him. But McVeigh's was just one version of events. And much of it was wrong. In Oklahoma City, veteran investigative journalists Andrew Gumbel and Roger G. Charles puncture the myth about what happened on that day—one that has persisted in the minds of the American public for nearly two decades. Working with unprecedented access to government documents, a voluminous correspondence with Terry Nichols, and more than 150 interviews with those immediately involved, Gumbel and Charles demonstrate how much was missed beyond the guilt of the two principal defendants: in particular, the dysfunction within the country's law enforcement agencies, which squandered opportunities to penetrate the radical right and prevent the bombing, and the unanswered question of who inspired the plot and who else might have been involved. To this day, the FBI heralds the Oklahoma City investigation as one of its great triumphs. In reality, though, its handling of the bombing foreshadowed many of the problems that made the country vulnerable to attack again on 9/11. Law enforcement agencies could not see past their own rivalries and underestimated the seriousness of the deadly rhetoric coming from the radical far right. In Oklahoma City, Gumbel and Charles give the fullest, most honest account to date of both the plot and the investigation, drawing a vivid portrait of the unfailingly compelling—driven, eccentric, fractious, funny, and wildly paranoid—characters involved.

Race, Real Estate, and Uneven Development, Second Edition

Race, Real Estate, and Uneven Development, Second Edition
Author: Kevin Fox Gotham
Publisher: SUNY Press
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2014-02-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1438449429

Updated second edition examining how the real estate industry and federal housing policy have facilitated the development of racial residential segregation. Traditional explanations of metropolitan development and urban racial segregation have emphasized the role of consumer demand and market dynamics. In the first edition of Race, Real Estate, and Uneven Development Kevin Fox Gotham reexamined the assumptions behind these explanations and offered a provocative new thesis. Using the Kansas City metropolitan area as a case study, Gotham provided both quantitative and qualitative documentation of the role of the real estate industry and the Federal Housing Administration, demonstrating how these institutions have promulgated racial residential segregation and uneven development. Gotham challenged contemporary explanations while providing fresh insights into the racialization of metropolitan space, the interlocking dimensions of class and race in metropolitan development, and the importance of analyzing housing as a system of social stratification. In this second edition, he includes new material that explains the racially unequal impact of the subprime real estate crisis that began in late 2007, and explains why racial disparities in housing and lending remain despite the passage of fair housing laws and antidiscrimination statutes. Praise for the First Edition “This work challenges the notion that demographic change and residential patterns are ‘natural’ or products of free market choices [it] contributes greatly to our understanding of how real estate interests shaped the hyper-segregation of American cities, and how government agencies[,] including school districts, worked in tandem to further demark the separate and unequal worlds in metropolitan life.” — H-Net Reviews (H-Education) “A hallmark of this book is its fine-grained analysis of just how specific activities of realtors, the FHA program, and members of the local school board contributed to the residential segregation of blacks in twentieth century urban America. A process Gotham labels the ‘racialization of urban space’—the social construction of urban neighborhoods that links race, place, behavior, culture, and economic factors—has led white residents, realtors, businessmen, bankers, land developers, and school board members to act in ways that restricted housing for blacks to specific neighborhoods in Kansas City, as well as in other cities.” — Philip Olson, University of Missouri–Kansas City “This is a book which is greatly needed in the field. Gotham integrates, using historical data, the involvement of the real estate industry and the collusion of the federal government in the manufacturing of racially biased housing practices. His work advances the struggle for civil rights by showing that solving the problem of racism is not as simple as banning legal discrimination, but rather needs to address the institutional practices at all levels of the real estate industry.” — Talmadge Wright, author of Out of Place: Homeless Mobilizations, Subcities, and Contested Landscapes