Alvin Brooks urges KC police board to delay vote on new police chief to get more input
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New Kansas City police chief Stacey Graves
Stacey Graves, a 25-year veteran of the KCPD, took leadership of the department at the end of 2022. She replaces Deputy Joseph Mabin, who served as interim chief after Rick Smith’s exit in April.
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Alvin Brooks, a former Kansas City police officer and mayor pro tem, on Tuesday asked the Board of Police Commissioners to delay its vote on a new police chief, suggesting more community input and greater transparency is needed.
The police board is scheduled to meet Tuesday morning at the police headquarters in downtown Kansas City. While the board has not announced when a vote would take place, it is likely they will meet in private session to discuss the three finalists.
Earlier this month, the board announced the three finalists: KCPD’s Acting Deputy Chief Stacey Graves; DeShawn Beaufort, a commander with the Philadelphia Police Department and Scott Ebner, a retired lieutenant colonel and deputy superintendent of administration for the New Jersey State Police.
Brooks, who served on the police board from 2010 to 2017 as a member and also as its chair, said the public forum that was held on Saturday did not provide residents with a clear understanding of what the finalists would do to embrace community policing and other crime-fighting initiatives.
“As board members you are, of course, aware that cries have come from across the City — including in the press, that the Board has not been transparent in its deliberations in its search for a new Chief,” Brooks said in an email sent to the board late Monday. “I believe these suggestions can reduce some of the perception of lack of transparency.
“But I hasten to say that for the Board as a public body, honoring total transparency as provided by law is essential for the community to have faith and trust in your deliberations and conclusions, most especially in the selection of a Chief,” he said.
In his letter, Brooks urged the police board to conduct three public meetings to be held in the Northland, Midtown and south Kansas City.
Each finalist should be asked to respond to the questions: “How do you define Community Policing? If you are chosen to be our next Chief, how and where would you start to implement Community Policing?”
Brooks said in April 1992, he along with then-Police Chief Steve Bishop attended a six-week think tank organized by Harvard University, where they developed a community policing model.
That plan was brought back to Kansas City and implemented in the Central Patrol Division, where Brooks said he believed there was a reduction in crime.
In 1977, Brooks helped organize the Ad Hoc Group Against Crime and served as the director of the city’s human relations department, which was organized following the 1968 riots in Kansas City.
“I believe the Board in its fiduciary responsibility owes this to our city and to the Police Department,” he said. “Please remember that perception over time becomes reality in the minds of those who show an interest in what you do.”
The selection process has been widely criticized for months by business, community and faith leaders. A coalition that was coordinated by the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce expressed concern that the selection of a new police chief was being done behind closed doors and without the input of residents, businesses and community groups.
That frustration spilled over into the public forum that was held on Saturday. Protesters disrupted one of the interviews where they yelled that the process was a scam, the board reneged on its promise to have several public meetings and already had decided among themselves who was going to be the next police chief.
On Monday, Mayor Quinton Lucas criticized the process the police board has carried out during its search for a police chief, and said that more time and community input is needed before a final vote.
“We weren’t really the best at communicating this process,” Lucas said. “We did have our one meeting. And now we’re just gonna decide kind of out of nowhere. This is not necessarily the best of processes that I think people would want.”
This story was originally published December 13, 2022 at 9:29 AM.
