Demonstrators gather at KCPD police headquarters for We Back Blue rally
A group of Kansas City area residents gathered outside the downtown Kansas City Police Department headquarters Saturday to declare their support for law enforcement.
The event, which started with a march at noon and ended at the headquarters, was organized by the national organization, We Back Blue.
Livestream video of the event showed attendees chanting “we back blue” as they arrived at the police headquarters.
Codie Allen, a DJ at 106.5 The Wolf, a Kansas City country music radio station, emceed the event.
Speakers applauded the marchers for their courage in standing up for the cause and called on them to continue to speak out and act in favor of police and against what they called an anti-police movement.
Ann Dorn, the wife of a retired police officer who was killed during a St. Louis protest, called for an end to violence.
“We have to be better,” she said. “We have to understand that it’s OK to not agree with someone.”
Her husband, David Dorn, was shot to death in a looting that followed protests over the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers.
Kansas City City Councilwoman Heather Hall and Rick Inglima, the president of the Missouri Fraternal Order of Police, each spoke at a rally.
Inglima read names of officers who have been killed in the line of duty in Missouri and Kansas this year, including Mike Mosher of Overland Park.
He asked those who have recently protested against police brutality and systemic racism to “extend a hand” to officers rather than yell.
“Law enforcement has been improving itself on a daily basis for the last 1,00 years,” Inglima said. “We’re not always right, we’re not always perfect because we’re human.”
Hall, the Kansas City councilwoman, urged the marchers to continue showing their support for officers. She criticized City Council’s decision to forgive certain citations given to protesters and said residents needed to work to keep the police department in the hands of the state rather than the city.
Local control of KCPD has been a major goal for advocates of police reform in Kansas City.
“If we’ve shown you anything it’s that we are doing things politically driven,” Hall said. “We cannot afford to hand that over to our city and our mayor.”
This story was originally published September 12, 2020 at 3:58 PM.
