Kansas City police reluctant to answer calls involving the houseless. Mayor disagrees.
Mayor Quinton Lucas and Police Chief Rick Smith are trying to work out a difference of opinion over whether KCPD can respond to calls involving those experiencing houselessness.
While officers have been present for camp sweeps conducted by the city’s Parks and Recreation department, police have not issued any citations or made any arrests at encampments since early 2021, Kansas City Police Chief Rick Smith said.
The issue surfaced at Tuesday’s Board of Police Commissioner’s meeting, stemming in part from an email sent earlier this month by a Columbus Park resident to a police major.
Kate Barsotti, president of the Columbus Park Neighborhood Council, detailed in a Feb. 7 email that she had tried calling KCPD’s non-emergency line after someone set up a tent in a public park after dark. She was told that police were no longer responding to such calls on public property unless asked by the city.
Two days later City Manager Brian Platt emailed Lucas to report that KCPD “will not intervene with issues at homeless encampments.”
Lucas, who sits on the police board, responded in a letter Monday to Smith that “it is the police department’s duty to enforce the laws, not to substitute other policy determinations in exercising their obligations.”
But on Tuesday, Smith said he was following a precedent set by the city. It was established, he said, when the city decided not to make arrests during last year’s City Hall encampment.
The encampment, organized as a protest by the Kansas City Homeless Union, lasted for several weeks last spring. At the time, city officials advised the police department not to make any arrests, in part because one city council member was threatening to be arrested with the protesters, Lucas said Tuesday.
At least one board member seemed sympathetic to Smith.
“We can’t have a situation where when they’re on the front yard of City Hall we don’t remove them, but if they’re someplace else not quite so public, we do,” commissioner Cathy Dean said at Tuesday’s meeting. “We have to be consistent.”
Lucas said if a law was on the books it needed to be enforced. “I’m publicly stating now that if there is a violation of the code of ordinances, then that is a violation of the code of ordinances in any part of Kansas City,” Lucas told Smith at the meeting.
Lucas added that he believes if a resident or business owner calls police with concerns, then they should be able to have some action taken. If the city wants to change that, then they need to change their ordinances, he said.
Smith then asked for assurance that police could go out and make arrests as they deem necessary without interference from politicians.
“I can’t make a guarantee that a city council person won’t say that ‘This is wrong,’” Lucas replied.
Morgan Said, a spokeswoman for the mayor’s office, said Wednesday afternoon that conversations around enforcement were ongoing.
The US Interagency Council on Homelessness has strongly advised local governments against enacting laws that criminalize homelessness, including measures that make it illegal to sleep or camp in public places. Many advocates argue that enforcement of such measures creates more barriers to necessary services and just exacerbates the problem.
Barsotti called KCPD’s non-emergency line earlier this month because she worried that if she didn’t soon, her neighborhood park could soon be filled with more tents.
“We’re always trying to find the balance between maintaining a community and trying to be compassionate,” Barsotti said.
Her solution: A clear policy on enforcement in public spaces.
But clarity is not what the city and police department gave her.
Barsotti frequently sees unhoused neighbors living in “barbaric” conditions, including those in wheelchairs, those with children and even someone undergoing cancer treatment.
She’s also started to notice an uptick in those experiencing houselessness carrying weapons, including machetes and knives.
“We’re caught in the middle because we see a lot of suffering,” she said, before adding that it’s tough when weapons come through a neighborhood and near a playground.
Last summer, a man experiencing houselessness came up to to one of Barsotti’s neighbors, asking for help. He’d been badly cut with a knife during a robbery, she said. They ended up calling an ambulance. She doesn’t believe the man, who was fearful for his life, ended up pressing charges.
But Evie Craig, president of the Paseo West Neighborhood Association, where encampments are increasingly common, said she believes it’s more complicated than creating one uniform policy.
Craig, who has volunteered with those experiencing houselessness, said much of law enforcement’s time could be spent on calls involving the homeless if every single violation of the law was enforced. And such a decision isn’t guaranteed to make the community safer, she said.
This story was originally published February 24, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
