John Albers’ mom says Johnson County nonprofit breaks law with police shooting meetings
The mother of John Albers — the 17-year-old fatally shot by a police officer in Overland Park — has filed a complaint alleging that Johnson County officials have violated Kansas’ open meetings law.
The complaint requests the Kansas Attorney General’s Office investigate the Johnson County Police Chiefs and Sheriffs Association.
The association is listed as a nonprofit with the Kansas Secretary of State.
Most records and meetings involving nonprofits are exempt from state transparency laws, which apply to public agencies.
However, Sheila Albers contends that the association should be subject to the Kansas Open Meetings Act because of its dealings with Johnson County’s Officer-Involved Shooting Investigation Team (OISIT). The multi-jurisdictional team, comprised of officers from Johnson County law enforcement agencies, investigates police shootings.
This police chief’s association, Albers wrote in the complaint, “conducts public business.”
According to OISIT’s policy manual, the police chief’s association provides administrative support to OISIT. Police chiefs serving as liaisons on a particular police shooting are responsible for communicating the status of an active investigation to the association.
The association has also determined policies and maintained rosters of OISIT personnel.
In the complaint filed earlier this week, Albers contends that the association met last year to discuss updates to OISIT’s policies and that future meetings should be open to the public.
Terry Anderson, the head of the association and police chief for the Johnson County Park Police, previously told The Star that the association’s meetings are not open to the public. He did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
Kansas’ open records law includes instrumentalities of public agencies, defined in a previous open records lawsuit as “a means or agency through which a function of another entity is accomplished.”
“It seems the association should have to prove that it is not an ‘instrumentality’ of the state,” said Max Kautsch, a Kansas attorney who focuses on open government.
In January 2018, former Overland Park police officer Clayton Jenison shot John Albers as he was backing out of the family’s driveway. Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe declined to file charges against Jenison.
In the years since, the teen’s parents have continued fighting for transparency.
Using open records law, Sheila Albers obtained a ballistics report showing the shots came through the side of the minivan. The lab report answers some questions about Jenison’s positioning and whether he was in the vehicle’s path when he decided to fire at the van.
An FBI investigation into the shooting is ongoing.
This story was originally published September 1, 2021 at 5:40 PM.
