Kansas City Police Department will reinstate suspended members to different unit

Nine members of the Kansas City police suspended during an internal investigation into the department’s crimes against children unit will be reinstated, officials confirmed Wednesday.

The two police sergeants and seven detectives are expected to return to work Sunday and will be assigned to the department’s patrol bureau while the internal investigation continues.

The captain who supervised the unit also has been reassigned but never was suspended.

The department launched the investigation after police officials learned that cases were not being handled promptly enough according to department policies and public expectations.

“Their suspension was necessary to allow immediate measures to determine the extent of possible problems,” said Capt. Tye Grant, a police spokesman. “As I had released before, they were never disciplinary in nature. With that priority handled, there is nothing preventing them to serve in a different capacity during the remainder of the internal investigation.”

Other detectives who have experience investigating crimes against children will continue handling the unit’s cases.

Concerns about possible case mismanagement came to light in October, and Police Chief Darryl Forté said that forced him to make inquiries. Officials learned the unit had accumulated a significant backlog of cases.

Commanders immediately made several administrative changes. An audit committee is looking into how investigators handled cases and their other duties.

“I believed the first priority was to remove them from the CAC and focus our attention on filling the gap and ensuring the unit began to function again,” Forté said Wednesday. “Now that we have taken care of that first priority, I believe it is best that those members continue to be a productive part of the department while we look deeper into this issue.”

There had been a delay getting some cases to prosecutors, and the delay was inconsistent with department policies, he said.

The extent of the problems is not yet known. The internal review will examine caseloads and whether roadblocks delayed detectives in completing their assignments.

The eight-detective unit handled roughly 1,000 cases in 2015. It investigates abuse, neglect, endangerment, parental kidnappings and custody violations.

This story was originally published February 3, 2016 at 10:55 AM with the headline "Kansas City Police Department will reinstate suspended members to different unit."