$900,000 settlement reached in wrongful arrest of KC teen who was jailed for three weeks
The Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners will pay $900,000 to settle a wrongful arrest from nearly six years ago that put a 15-year-old behind bars for three weeks, according to sources with knowledge of the agreement.
Under a newly formed settlement agreement, Tyree Bell will be awarded the sum for damages and court costs. The family sued the Kansas City officers involved in his wrongful arrest and police department leadership in 2017, alleging the Black teenager’s civil rights were violated by white cops who misidentified him and failed to review exonerating evidence.
Sgt. Jake Becchina, a spokesman for the Kansas City Police Department, confirmed details of the settlement in a statement to The Star on Wednesday afternoon. Under the agreement he said Bell would be awarded $442,000 in compensatory damages and his attorney would receive $458,000 for legal fees.
Becchina said the department has “always sought a successful resolution for all parties” since the lawsuit was filed.
“Through the legal process the officers involved made it known they would like to meet with Mr. Bell and apologize,” Becchina said, adding: “We are glad we reached a mutual resolution and we wish Mr. Bell and his family all the best.”
On June 8, 2016, Kansas City police were alerted to suspicious activity in the area of 91st Street and Marsh Avenue after a caller reported three Black male teenagers were outside of a residence showing off a gun to a group of teenage girls.
Responding to the scene were officers Jonathan Munyan and Peter Neukirch. After they pulled up in a marked patrol car, they saw three people described over dispatch radio. The teens ran when the emergency lights were switched on.
Two suspects were arrested near the scene. The third ran from police and was seen tossing a gun that struck a fence on James Reed Road. Neukirch radioed in a description of the third suspect.
Roughly a mile away, Bell was walking along 87th Street near a McDonald’s restaurant after he had returned home from summer school. He was detained by another Kansas City police officer based on the belief that he matched the description of the third suspect.
Bell was transported to 91st and Marsh, where Munyan and Neukirch positively identified Bell as the teenager who ran, according to court records. But lawyers for Bell have contended that police neglected to check their own dash camera videos or ask other witnesses about Bell which could have immediately exonerated him.
Bell then spent the next three weeks in the Jackson County Juvenile Detention Center. He long maintained his innocence and Kansas City police were contacted by his mother several times with requests to review the evidence against her son.
A detective eventually looked at the dash camera video and discovered the mistake, recommending to a local prosecutor that the charges against Bell be dismissed. Bell was released from the facility on June 29, 2016, as the charges were dropped.
In the resulting civil case, the Bell family argued that the teen’s Fourth Amendment right protecting him from unlawful arrest was violated. They also contend police failed to acknowledge that Bell’s hairstyle and clothing were different from the suspect’s.
In an interview with The Star shortly after the lawsuit was filed, Bell’s mother Sherri James said she had frequent panic attacks while her son was in jail.
“Knowing that your son is in a cell for something he didn’t do? It was horrible.”
Bell said his attitude toward police had changed.
“Every time I see a police officer or a police car, I feel like I’m in trouble. I don’t know how to really explain it, it’s just a feeling that I get. The police, I felt like they were there to comfort and support.
“I don’t feel that anymore.”
News of the agreement first came during a court hearing Tuesday in the Western District of Missouri. Lawyers from both sides informed the court that the parties had arrived at a settlement that would be finalized within two weeks.
Arthur Benson, the lawyer representing the Bell family, told The Star on Wednesday that when Bell was wrongfully seized by two white officers, it was not just a matter of mistaken identity or walking while Black.
“It was a part of a national disgrace that has been allowed to persist among white police for forty years: cross-race identifications of Black males by white officers are often wrong,” Benson said. “And they are often wrong because too many police departments do not train their officers that all Blacks do not look alike and how to make an eyewitness identification that is not tainted by racial stereotypes.”
“Tyree Bell was a victim of the Kansas City Police Department’s failure to address this national outrage,” he said.
The settlement caps off years of litigation.
The lawsuit was first filed against the officers involved in the arrest as well as the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners, which oversees the department, in 2017. A jury was presented with the case late last year. That trial ended after the jury was unable to return a unanimous verdict.
The settlement is among the larger payouts originating from a case involving KCPD as of late. Records obtained by The Star related to cases alleging police brutality and excessive use of force show the department has paid out nearly $10 million in legal settlements since 2014.
For example, the department paid $1.5 million to a Black man who survived being shot 16 times by police officers in 2016. A separate shooting three years earlier, which left a Black man paralyzed, led to a $4.8 million settlement — one of the largest payments in the department’s history.
The Star’s Luke Nozicka and Glenn E. Rice contributed to this report.
This story was originally published February 23, 2022 at 10:03 AM.
