‘I wanted to do this job’: A conversation with KCK Police Chief Karl Oakman
Throughout most of his law enforcement career, Karl Oakman had never thought of becoming a police chief.
His goal was always focusing on the job he was tasked with. But as he’s gone from job to job, police department to police department, he’s seen the ins and outs of how those departments operate. At each place he’s been, he has moved up to where he is now: chief of police for the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department.
Oakman, 51, was sworn in as the new leader in June, overseeing a department with about 345 sworn officers, 150 civilian employees, a $60 million budget and numerous controversies.
One of the biggest scandals deals with former detective Roger Golubski, who is accused of using his badge to exploit and rape vulnerable Black women. Federal prosecutors initiated a criminal grand jury investigation into Golubski in 2019.
It’s now been close to six months since Oakman — who grew up in Kansas City, Kansas, and graduated from J.C. Harmon High School — became police chief. In a 35-minute phone conversation with The Star, he spoke about his time as chief, why community relations with police are important, diversity within the force and whether he supports a Department of Justice investigation into the department.
Q: How has your time as police chief been?
A: It’s gone well. Been able to put some initiatives in place that I think, moving forward, is kind of improving on some of the successful things and then bringing some new initiatives, putting a different set of eyes. Really, the big thing that I’ve really focused on is making sure that the men and women of the police department are valued, that they’re equipped and that they put an emphasis on community engagement. And so far, things are going well. We’re going in the right direction, and I’m pretty optimistic about the future.
Q: You mentioned initiatives. What were some of the initiatives that you wanted to implement when you were sworn in?
A: So some of the things that I implemented: One, I created a Hispanic Community Liaison Officer. That was a position for members of the community to understand the police department events, seek opinions from citizens about police practices that identify community concerns from a bilingual standpoint due to the large Hispanic population of KCK. I felt that that was really important. This position is there to help reduce the chances of victimization, intimidation by members who don’t feel that they could really voice their opinion or interact with the police. Sometimes they may not be documented and they feel that they can’t come to the police, and we want all members of KCK to feel important and come to the police to help us reduce crime and just help with leads and navigating through cultural differences.
And then another thing we did is our Kansas City, Kansas ID project and that was geared towards our unsheltered or homeless community. And this helps with them as far as getting resources. They’ve all had IDs at one point but due to some circumstances in life, they may have not been able to keep up with the necessary paperwork or have the resources to ensure that they get their ID. So far we’ve issued over 100 of those.
You served as deputy chief with KCPD before being named police chief, is there a big difference serving as deputy chief from serving as police chief?
There is a big difference because the buck stops with you. I think that’s the big difference. But even in my role as a deputy chief, oftentimes I was the acting chief, so I understand the process, the procedures, and I’ve always been a kind of person that looks at the overall approach on how to improve things. I’ve never been a complainer but I’m always pursuing solutions. And that’s one thing that I’m stressing with my staff his is, ‘You can complain, but if you complain, have a solution.’ I will tell you it’s the biggest differences that you have all the divisions of the police department to be concerned with, and, like I said, the buck stops with you. You make the final decision when it comes to things such as how you respond to critical incidents, community initiatives. And being a police chief this day and age is a difficult job.
How would you describe the relationship you had with the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department growing up?
Believe it or not my first interaction with the police growing up was when I was about 6 years old. And I know when you talk about the police in the past there was a lot of things the police did wrong, a lot of issues around fairness and equity.
But I will tell you one thing that a lot of police departments got right with with the community policing part. And in my neighborhood, where I grew up, we had an officer, we had the same officer that would patrol and he would always get out of his car and take his time to talk to his kids. He would give us coloring books. And I had a real positive interacting with the police at an early age. Now, during that time most, a lot of police officers didn’t operate that way, but there were some, which was a benefit for me.
How would you describe the role race plays in policing?
I kind of take a different approach on that. I always believe policing is a low-hanging fruit to talk about race in policing. But, through the years, race has been an issue in the banking industry, the real estate industry, teaching, not just policing. I think one of the issues with policing is, as I mentioned earlier, is being flexible and understanding that times have changed. I think it started out more with cliques being more of an issue, where you had a group of people that always became police officers, just like with anything else, and you didn’t let other groups in that profession.
One of the big issues is, when you look at the minority breakdown in policing, it’s not very high. And I think that’s part of the problem. And the other side of it, some of those minority communities discourage people from being police officers, and that’s something that has to stop. I know that we have a history with the police and minority communities, but when you are discouraging people from going into the profession, you’re just making that situation worse, and policing has come a long way since I came on 30 years ago.
I think recruiting and hiring is a big part of that, of really turning that around and having a diverse police department would help with that.
Would you like the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department to be more diverse?
I think the first that you got to always look at in policing is you want good, honorable, respectable people with integrity, regardless of their race. That’s the main thing that you have to look for. And I think KCK does do a good job. A large percentage of the members that we recruit actually come from Kansas City, Kansas. And, as you know, Kansas City, Kansas is a very, very diverse area.
There always needs to be more diversity in law enforcement because when you have diversity, you get more experiences. And not just race. You need diversity in gender, religion, where they come from. You could have someone who was a college professor, someone who was a pilot, someone who did other fields. In policing, you’re going to deal with all types of people, from all types of walks of life. So, in economic diversity, people from poor neighborhoods, people from affluent neighborhoods, I think policing needs all of that for it to be successful and continue to be successful.
How do you react to community activists wanting a Department of Justice investigation into the police department?
I don’t believe that’s a good thing. First of all, regardless of what happened in the past, DOJ investigations tend to focus on current issues. I’ve been here (six) months and I have not seen any issues currently that has been mentioned in the media. And one thing as the new chief, if you hire a new chief, you should give that chief the opportunity to put in initiatives, put in plans to make sure to make sure that those perceptions are eliminated. I think a DOJ investigation would do far more harm than good. I can’t speak to what happened in the past, but I can speak to what’s going on in 2021 and what’s gonna go on in the future. This is going to be a police department that’s here to serve the community, not police the community.
Couldn’t an argument be made that good could come out of it is looking at the wrongs and making sure they don’t happen again?
I think KCK, one step they’ve done is electing a new chief — a chief that did not grow up in the organization. So as a chief that didn’t grow up in this organization, I’m looking at everything. I’m looking at all types of procedures and processes. Then I would determine if they were a detriment to the community. So spending an absorbent amount of time to have the DOJ come in and look at our police department based on incidents that have occurred in the past, some of them 25 years ago, really doesn’t do much good.
Can the public trust that if you do find something that is wrong within the time you’re there that you will come out and publicly address it?
Absolutely. As long as it’s within the state laws of Kansas, I have no problem in doing that. I wouldn’t have took this job because this is what I want to explain to the community: I took this job, not because I needed this job. I took this job because I wanted to do this job. This is my hometown. I want my hometown police department to be an integrity-based, honestly-based and community-based police department that works hard to make this community safe. A safe place to live, work and play. That’s my focus. And if I find anything that I feel is a detriment to the community, then it will be addressed.
