WICHITA, Kan. (AP) Wichita amassed more homicides in 2018 than in any year since 1995, in part because of an increase in self-defense killings.
At least 43 people died by homicide in Wichita over the past year, up five from 2017, The Wichita Eagle reported. Police said the five-person increase can in part be attributed to self-defense killings, which increased by five, from three to eight.
Kansas is among numerous states where citizens have no legal obligation to retreat from an attacker if they are lawfully present in a place. Before the stand-your-ground law was approved in Kansas in 2007, a person couldnt use force before trying, if there was a chance, to escape violence or retreat.
A homicide is justifiable in Kansas when a person reasonably believes that the use of deadly force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to that person or a third party.
In the past three years, Wichita police have worked five times as many justifiable homicides as during the first six and a half years of the stand-your-ground law, according to numbers provided by police. From 2006 to the middle of 2012, Wichita police worked three justifiable homicide cases, police said at the time. From 2016 to 2018, there were 15.
Nationally, police shootings account for the majority of justifiable homicides.
Prosecutors cant file charges against someone in Kansas in a self-defense killing unless the state can establish beyond a reasonable doubt that a person didnt act in self-defense, said Marc Bennett, Sedgwick Countys district attorney.
Prosecutors must first decide whether a person believed he or she had to act when using deadly force. Then, prosecutors consider if that persons belief was sensible under the facts known to that person at the time of the killing.
Bennett said charges can be dropped if evidence doesnt show beyond a reasonable doubt that a person acted in self-defense.
