The fatal shooting of chef Shaun Brady outside his Kansas City restaurant in August 2024 not only devastated his family and community but also triggered measurable economic consequences for the local area. Brady, a 44-year-old Irish-born culinary figure, was killed while taking out trash during dinner service when teenagers attempted to steal his vehicle. Though unarmed, he confronted them, leading to gunfire that ended his life. The incident, one of 144 homicides in the city that year, underscores the broader financial burden violent crime imposes beyond personal tragedy. According to a 2023 analysis by the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, each homicide costs taxpayers approximately $1.26 million in direct expenses, including police response, medical care, legal proceedings, incarceration, and victim support. Additional studies show property values near crime scenes can drop by up to 2.3%, and every gun-related death correlates with the closure of roughly two local retail or service businesses the following year. In Brady’s case, the restaurant Brady & Fox closed permanently, leaving around a dozen employees temporarily unemployed. Even with rehiring at other establishments, lost wages during the transition period amounted to between $16,000 and $21,000. The vacant space remained unleased for a year, resulting in roughly $100,000 in forgone rent for the building owner, Butch Rigby. He also invested another $100,000 in enhanced security measures, including surveillance cameras and improved lighting. Two other businesses in the East Brookside neighborhood relocated due to employee safety concerns, reflecting wider trends where violence deters investment and occupancy. Customer traffic to nearby venues declined, particularly for evening events, as patrons avoided the area. Community responses included a GoFundMe campaign that raised over $191,000 for Brady’s family and a memorial cookbook that sold out rapidly, with proceeds benefiting his children’s future. The Irish Fest, which Brady had long supported, renamed its annual breakfast “The Brady Brunch” in his honor. Despite these efforts, the cumulative economic loss linked to the incident is estimated at $1.5 million. Beyond quantifiable figures, the emotional toll persists—on employees, neighbors, and a city striving to balance revitalization with public safety. Kansas City’s ongoing investments in law enforcement and violence prevention, including a $343 million annual police budget and multimillion-dollar initiatives like Jackson County’s COMBAT fund, reflect the sustained fiscal commitment required to combat such cycles. The case illustrates how individual acts of violence can ripple through neighborhoods, undermining development gains and straining public resources.
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Hidden costs of grief: Chef Shaun Brady’s murder illustrates economic toll of gun violence in KC
Stunned neighbors and friends gathered outside of Brady & Fox the evening of Aug. 28, 2024, looking on as yellow police tape stretched across the restaurant’s entrance at 63rd Street and Rockhill Road. Some wanted to share stories of the man they knew, while others stood in shocked silence.
Shaun Brady, the acclaimed 44-year-old Irish-born chef, had been taking out trash at his restaurant during a Wednesday evening rush hour when teenagers tried to steal his car.
Brady, who was unarmed, confronted them. Shots were fired, killing Brady. Seven 9mm shell casings would be found in the parking lot.
Within an hour, two teens were arrested — including a juvenile who recently pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the case.
The murder would cost Kansas City far more than the incalculable loss of a husband and father to his adoring family. The incident — just one of 144 homicides in Kansas City last year — also speaks to the lingering economic toll of gun violence.
“Shaun Brady was more than just a friend to me — he was family,” wrote chef Jasper Mirabile in the recently published Shaun & Seamus Brady Cookbook, produced as part of ongoing community efforts to support the Brady family. “Shaun was a one-of-a-kind soul. A devoted family man and easily one of the finest chefs in Kansas City.”
Brady’s murder rippled from this east Brookside corner, through the Brady family, through the neighborhood, through the area restaurant scene, through the Irish community and the city writ large. His murder made international news and its impact lingers long after the initial tears have dried.
“Crime is a disease. Gun crime is cancer. Shooting deaths are like Stage IV cancer,” said Butch Rigby, owner of Screenland Real Estate Services and the building that housed Brady & Fox. “It is probably the single worst threat to the economic viability of a neighborhood.”
Many people are familiar with the human cost of gun violence, but underlying the personal loss and emotional toll of violent crime are stark economic numbers:
A National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform analysis of 17 U.S. cities in 2023 estimated that each homicide equals $1.26 million in direct costs to taxpayers.
A Philadelphia study from 2019 found that each homicide reduces nearby property values by 2.3%.
A 2021 analysis from finder.com estimated that homicides reduce U.S. property values by $7.5 billion a year.
A 2017 report by the Urban Institute concluded that every gun homicide in a city reduced the number of retail and service businesses by two the next year.
A 2012 report from the Center for American Progress found that one fewer homicide in a year for a ZIP code is associated with a 1.5% increase in home values in that ZIP code the next year.
The full economic costs of violent crime hide in plain sight. They are in everything from reduced property values and higher insurance premiums to lost wages, prosecution costs and neighborhood reputational damage. If left unchecked, business and residential losses can compound into what The Wall Street Journal dubbed a “doom loop” in describing parts of downtown St. Louis.
“If things like that (Brady’s murder) happen on a regular basis, we’re going to lose all the progress we’ve made as a city, and the economic effects are devastating,” Rigby said. “St. Louis is a great example of crime tearing their downtown apart.”
Immediate aftermath
Brady’s family, including his wife, Kate, and two young children, faced immediate unexpected expenses.
Funeral and burial costs average $8,300 nationwide. There were travel expenses for the extended family: last-minute flights between Kansas City and Ireland range from $850 to $1,400. Bills were due at the restaurant and funds were needed to ensure family stability and future education expenses for the children.
Pat O’Neill, a close friend of the Brady family and co-founder of the Kansas City Irish Fest, was at the crime scene grappling with personal shock and with tough choices that had to be made immediately.
“The first decision that had to be made by the (Irish) Festival Board was how to support the family and Shaun’s staff at Brady & Fox,” said O’Neill via email. “Then if and how to put on the annual brunch on Sunday — just a few days away.”
O’Neill says there was an emergency Irish Fest board meeting the night Brady died. Within hours, they launched a GoFundMe for the family that would raise more than $191,000 from 2,000 donors in mere days.
“Almost immediately, the donations came pouring in,” said O’Neill. “The fact is, we were all stunned upon hearing the news. Everyone — his many, many friends and legions of his customers wanted to do something to help the family, with lost income and bills to pay at the shuttered restaurant.”
Brady was set to serve food to hundreds of people at the popular Irish Fest Sunday brunch that he hosted since 2016. Given his passing just four days before the brunch, the festival board had to scramble to decide what to do.
O’Neill says the board decided in their emergency meeting to cancel the brunch and refund the hundreds of tickets that were sold at $45 each. They also set up a space for a somber vigil honoring Brady after Sunday Mass. They also took it a step further.
“So as not to put the family and restaurant out, the festival paid the restaurant about $9,000 dollars for the food and its preparation,” said O’Neill.
Food that was already prepared or stocked in Brady & Fox was given to volunteers, sponsors and performers at the festival or donated to charity.
Brady & Fox closes doors
Rigby, who owns the building that housed Brady & Fox, let the family take some time to assess. The decision was ultimately made to close the restaurant because it couldn’t be replicated in Brady’s absence.
“The most important thing was the loss of our friend and tenant,” said Rigby. “We had to give the family time to gather and liquidate what they could. We of course also did not enforce the lease.”
Brady employed about a dozen people and his core staff suddenly had no income. Research suggests grief can negatively impact workplace productivity following a traumatic loss, with sudden violent deaths causing particularly prolonged impact. His employees were stunned by the sudden loss.
“Shaun was the most loving, shirt-off-his-back kind of person. You never had to ask for help — he offered it,” said Brady & Fox bartender Mary Gregory in the commemorative cookbook. “He saved space for everyone who needed it, without asking for anything in return. To know him was to love him.”
O’Neill said that other restaurants absorbed Brady’s employees, but not before they had gone weeks without pay during their job search.
The average restaurant employee in Kansas City earns between $16.91 and $21.85 an hour, according to the Mid-America Regional Council. That means even if it took all dozen of Brady’s employees just two weeks to find a new job, that adds up to between $16,000 to $21,000 in lost wages.
East Brookside neighborhood’s wounds
Rigby’s Screenland Real Estate Services, among other projects, has been developing the popular Brookside neighborhood edging farther east down 63rd Street in an effort to connect historically disinvested areas of Kansas City.
“The incredible success of Kansas City over the last 25 years is not complete until we start including our neighbors to the east and people who have entrepreneurial dreams just like we do,” Rigby said.
Rigby noted that a previous uptick in property crime nearby and the gun death of Brady hurt those efforts in the short term.
Two business tenants left the area citing safety concerns of their employees, which mirrors data found in nationwide studies after a homicide. The Brady & Fox restaurant space sat empty for a year, which cost Rigby in the ballpark of $100,000 in lost rent.
“We took an area that was 70% vacant up and down the street and filled it to 100% and we spent $20 million renovating buildings,” said Rigby. “You can exercise every day and be in good shape, but then you get a disease … It’s a very small minority, maybe 50 people in this city, that are destroying everything.”
Rigby spent another $100,000 on security cameras and upgraded lighting. His tenants started asking for escorts to their cars. The security guard who used to patrol five nights now works extra hours.
“Our higher-end restaurant traffic and the event space on 63rd was diminished,” said Rigby. “People said, ‘No, there’s a bunch of shootings around there, I’m not gonna have a wedding there at night on a weekend with all these people roaming with guns.’”
Crime can cause people to avoid areas altogether. Research has concluded that the loss of foot traffic hurts businesses and it can also increase crime because, as noted urbanist Jane Jacobs wrote, there are fewer “eyes on the street.”
Public cost of crime
The youth who pleaded guilty to shooting and killing Shaun Brady, referred to only by the initials K.H., was not tried as an adult. As a result, their sentence is not a public record.
O’Neill said it hurts the friends and family to see what they believe is a light sentence handed down and that it brought about an angry cry from the community.
“I can assure you, the judge who refused to try Shaun’s killer as an adult … will hear that angry cry loud and clear the next time she’s on the ballot for retention,” O’Neill said.
The criminal justice process has been an emotionally taxing one for the family and friends of Brady. In addition, the public cost to hold a juvenile in Missouri is $307.66 a day for secure care.
According to the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, each homicide costs taxpayers $1.2 million in direct expenses, including:
Crime scene response from police, forensics, coroner and EMTs.
Prosecution, investigation and court costs.
Incarceration, both pretrial and in prison.
Victim support programs and social services.
Hospitalization costs.
In Rigby’s view, the public cost of crime doesn’t stop there.
“I think the hidden cost of gun violence is the theft of your neighborhood, the theft of your well-being, in your home,” Rigby said. “It’s a cost that people … have dealt with for decades.”
Residents of Kansas City and Jackson County also invest heavily in violence prevention programs, police budgets and jails:
Kansas City paid more than $343 million on police this year, which equates to $675 per resident.
The city also set aside $30 million over five years for violence prevention.
Jackson County invested $33.7 million for violence prevention in 2024 through their COMBAT fund.
Kansas City renewed a public safety sales tax for a new jail that will generate $24 million a year for 20 years.
Recovery and remembrance
A year later, the east Brookside neighborhood is showing signs of recovery. Foot traffic has returned. Tenants have filled spaces that were vacated, including a new Mexican restaurant that opened last month in the former Brady & Fox space.
The Irish Fest’s ever-popular traditional Labor Day Sunday breakfast returned this year with a record turnout of more than 1,000 people. In honor of Brady, the breakfast was renamed “The Brady Brunch,” and some of his former employees helped to re-create the traditional Irish dishes.
A memorial cookbook — put together by O’Neill with proceeds going to the Brady Family Revocable Trust — sold out in hours. They’ll keep ordering more. Named after the chef and his son, the Shaun and Seamus Brady Cookbook passes on many of his most revered recipes.
“We put that cookbook together with input from his friends and family on both sides of the pond,” O’Neill said. “We did it mostly as a gift to Shaun’s mom and siblings in Ireland and his wife and kids in KC.”
One year after his death, a conservative estimate of the economic loss stemming from Brady’s murder stands at $1.5 million.
But no one can calculate what it costs when people gather behind crime scene tape instead of restaurant tables, or when flowers wilt on sidewalks where children used to run.
Brady was fond of asking parents if he could take children into the kitchen to share some “Irish celery” with them. When the kids returned the “celery” looked suspiciously like free ice cream.
Such priceless acts don’t fit in spreadsheets.
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