The Mad Max movie series offered a terrifying vision of society collapsing into anarchic tribal violence amid resource wars and ecocide.
In today’s Kansas City, Missouri, basic utilities like water and electricity are still functioning. However, residents note that their city now shares many similarities with the chaotic, retro-futuristic world depicted in the diesel-punk movie series.
Motorcycle and ATV gangs have taken over the streets, riding recklessly on sidewalks and endangering pedestrians. The sidewalks are littered with garbage, adding to the deteriorating urban landscape. Additionally, the issue of homelessness has reached critical levels.
Locals lock their doors as gunshots ring out through the night. One of them told the Daily Mail it was like living in ‘Kans-ghanistan.’
Many residents are critical of Mayor Quinton Lucas, claiming that he has weakened the position of law enforcement since he vocally supported the Black Lives Matter movement and its protests, which included incidents of vehicle arson in 2020.
Crooks and hoodlums have little to fear, residents said, as Kansas City has not had its own jail since 2009, and can only access a few dozen detention beds in lockups in nearby counties.
They also blamed Jean Peters-Baker, a self-styled ‘justice seeker’ who was panned for ‘soft-on-crime’ policies in the 13 years she was the county prosecutor, a job she left in January.
In a chilling exit interview, Peters-Baker admitted that violence was ‘still really high,’ that she’d failed to get a handle on gun crime, and wanted a job that was ‘a little less hard.’
Mayor Quinton Lucas is accused of undermining Kansas City police in the wake of the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots
The mayor’s critics say under his watch Kansas City has collapsed into ‘Mad Max’ chaos of street-racing gangs that terrorize locals
‘If people were killing each other with rocks, I could have probably gotten a lot more done,’ she told KSHB 41.
Lucas and Peters-Baker declined our requests for comment. Earlier this month, the Democratic mayor said his city’s spiraling crime wave was down to the cops — not him.
Mary Nestel, 59, a lifelong Kansas City resident, and other locals, don’t buy it.
‘We’re just heartbroken and almost in tears about what’s being destroyed right in front of us,’ the insurance agent told the Daily Mail.
‘Our leaders are more interested in their personal agendas and filling their pockets than listening to the citizens who are affected by their poor decisions every day.’
She spoke after another brutal week in the Missouri city of half a million people, once better known for its barbecue, jazz music, and picturesque fountains.
A man and a woman were shot and killed after an argument erupted outside a home in south Kansas City; police tried to regain control of streets overrun by ATV and dirt bike gangs and sideshows.
In recent weeks, an ATV driver knocked down a police officer and then injured him again while pulling a wheelie.
Kansas City police have tried to regain control of streets overrun by ATV and dirt bike gangs and sideshows
Locals liken the streets of Kansas City to the diesel-punk mayhem captured in the Mad Max franchise
A woman pedestrian was injured on Cinco de Mayo weekend by a dirt bike wheelie stunt in the busy downtown restaurant district.
The dystopian scenes recall the Mad Max movies, which saw a ‘road warrior’, played by Mel Gibson in the original and Tom Hardy in the reboot, battle gangs riding motorbikes and ATVs across the Australian desert.
Another video of brazen lawlessness emerged this month, showing two people mercilessly punching and kicking another on the sidewalk at a bus stop downtown at night.
Restaurant owners say their eateries are empty after 8pm, as locals are too scared to leave their homes.
Kansas City now ranks among the most dangerous cities in America, with homicides peaking at 182 in 2023 and still scarily high.
The ‘City of Fountains’ has the worst homelessness crisis in the US, with 96 percent of unhoused people sleeping on streets, in cars, or derelict buildings, federal housing data show.
Sidewalks are strewn with garbage, business owners wash human waste off pavements each morning, says Nestel.
Jay, a former Kansas City resident who didn’t share his surname, said gunshots echoed through his neighborhood nightly and three of his neighbors were killed in the 18 months he lived there.
Last month, the issue was thrust even further into public view when a reckless ATV rider slammed into a police officer in downtown Kansas City, leaving the cop briefly hospitalized with severe head injuries
By one scary metric, Kansas City has the worst rate of homelessness in the country
‘I’ve since moved back to South America, where the only gunshots I hear are in my nightmares, where I imagine being back in Kansghanistan,’ he said.
Self-styled ‘justice seeker’ Jean Peters-Baker
Nestel and Mark Anthony Jones, a downtown resident who heads a district GOP committee, blamed Lucas, saying the mayor championed soft-on-crime polices since the George Floyd race riots erupted in early 2020.
‘It’s all connected: the homeless, the crime, the lack of leadership,’ said Nestel.
‘When Lucas in 2020 stood at Washington Square Park and raised his fist and said ‘No justice, no peace’ and defunded the police department, he started the ball rolling.’
Jones also blamed former prosecutor Peters-Baker for embracing ‘policies of not enforcing laws against non-violent crimes.’
‘That set the stage for minor offenses to get more and more common,’ Jones said.
‘No consequences for criminals leads to big consequences for folks who want to live safe lives.’
Police don’t bother to book car thieves and other lower-level offenders as there are not enough jail beds to process them, he said.
Long-standing local businesses are bearing the brunt – watching foot traffic vanish and revenue slip away
The city’s jail shuttered in 2009, and it’s since used a few dozen beds at lockups in nearby counties.
There are plans to build a new city jail, but it won’t be open for several years.
City council members are even mulling a stopgap ‘modular jail’ that could be built in six months.
Lucas has repeatedly rejected claims he tried to ‘defund’ city police after the BLM riots of 2020.
Kansas City is the only city in the state where the local elected officials, by law, have almost no authority in how the police department’s budget is spent.
Lucas and some city council members in 2021 tried to divert $42 million of the police budget toward community engagement and intervention — but that was blocked by a judge.
He has since rowed with the state over how much budget Kansas City must spend on policing.
The force was hit with more budget cuts this week, after having to pay out more than $18 million from two recent lawsuits.
Kansas City police have in recent weeks stepped up efforts to regain control of the lawless streets
The Mad Max movies saw a ‘road warrior’ played by Mel Gibson and Tom Hardy battle gangs riding motorbikes, trucks and ATVs across the outback
Speaking with the Daily Mail earlier this month, Lucas slammed the gangs, but rejected claims he’s responsible for the city’s collapse.
He said Kansas City could ‘handle this moment’ and that a police recruitment drive would get more officers on the streets in the coming months.
‘More than anything, we need to make sure that there are real consequences for those who are engaging in reckless and foolish behavior in downtown Kansas City,’ he added.
‘I have great confidence in the city being able to handle this moment and many others,’ said the mayor, who lives in a four-bedroom, $500,000 home.
Peters-Baker left Kansas City soon after her term ended, records show. She did not answer our requests for an interview.
Speaking with KSHB 41 in December, she said she was ‘smart-on-crime,’ not soft, but added that she was hamstrung by other officials.
‘There’s so many things I’d hoped for when I got into that job. One was that violence would be reduced,’ she said.
‘Politically, it’s gotten so awful.’
Nestel tried and failed to get a seat on the city council in 2023.
She co-founded a civic group of business owners and residents called the Real Kansas City that runs clean-ups in parks and other run-down areas.
The group’s Facebook page has 2,300 members, who post about Kansas City’s chaos and policies that have solved social problems in Omaha, St. Louis and other mid-size cities.
Members hope they can turn the tide before Kansas City becomes more like the Mad Max wasteland, she says.
‘We’re very passionate about our city and determined to help,’ Nestel says.
‘But we also feel helpless and there’s nothing we can do.’
