Patrol officer is one of two KCPD staffers who tested positive for coronavirus
A patrol officer is one of two Kansas City Police Department employees who tested positive for the new coronavirus, the department said Wednesday.
The other employee is in civilian in administration, officials said. Additionally, 16 other police department members have been quarantined.
Sgt. Jake Becchina, a spokesman for the department, said staffing levels remain sufficient to respond to the needs of the community.
“We’re handling our operations, our staffing is good right now, we’ve got protocols in place,” he said.
Officials have formulated plans in the event that more employees test positive which “could affect some staffing numbers,” he said.
It’s unclear if the patrol officer had come into contact with members of the public recently.
“As far as what these individual members had as far as contact, what I do know is the health department is following their guidelines and the CDC’s guidelines as far as following up with anybody that may have had contact with a confirmed positive individual,” Becchina said.
The source of the exposure remains unknown.
For the past two weeks, officers have been practicing six feet of social distancing and asking people to come out of their homes to talk, Becchina said.
Kansas City’s stay at home order went into effect March 24. Becchina said police have not been proactively enforcing the order.
“We’re not looking to enact some kind of a police state where we have roadblocks or anything like that where we are just going around looking for people that may not be conforming with the ban on public gatherings or the ban on nonessential businesses,” he said.
“We want people to take responsibility on their own, to follow the guidelines and to follow the procedures that are suggested to them by local, state and federal governments.”
In Missouri, 1,327 people, including 119 in Kansas City, have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to the latest statistics from state health officials.
Missouri has identified three times as many coronavirus cases as Kansas has. But Missouri has also tested about three times as many people. People tested in both states have tested positive for the virus at a rate close to 8 percent.
