After police beat man on live TV, KCPD won’t say if officers were disciplined or not

The Kansas City Police Department has completed an official review of the actions of police seen on live television beating a man while arresting him after a high-speed chase.

But the Police Department is not saying what, if any, disciplinary action is being taken against any officer.

“The Department’s records pertaining to individually identifiable personnel records and the disciplining of employees are closed records,” Officer Darin Snapp, a Police Department spokesman, said in a statement Wednesday.

The Police Department cited a Missouri law that says individually identifiable personnel records can be closed to the public.

However, the Police Department can, and has, announced when it disciplined officers, without identifying them.

On May 2 Troy Russell Anderson, 32, of Independence was suspected in a carjacking at 87th Street and Winner Road.

Anderson allegedly led officers on a 20-minute high-speed chase through several residential areas, along busy roadways and through intersections.

A television news helicopter captured the pursuit and the arrest, when officers quickly swarmed over Anderson at a park area near Ninth Street and Utley Avenue.

As Anderson lay on the ground with his hands behind his back, one officer wearing black gloves repeatedly punched him in the back. The officer also kneed Anderson in the side of his torso.

After the arrest, police found a small knife in Anderson’s front pocket.

Anderson was charged with first-degree robbery, resisting arrest and armed criminal action. He is being held in the Jackson County Detention Center.

At the time of the incident in May, the officers involved were not removed from duty.

In an interview Wednesday about her decision to seek to be elected chair of Missouri Democratic Party, Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker referred questions about the incident to her spokesman.

The spokesman, Mike Mansur, said state and federal prosecutors reviewed the case and decided not to file criminal charges. Mansur declined further comment.

Lora McDonald, executive director of More2, an interfaith social advocacy group, said there should be some exceptions to the state law that closes records when police and some public employees face discipline.

“We have reached a point in most communities where there has been an erosion of trust between law enforcement and community and we certainly have reached that point in Kansas City,” McDonald said. “The public saw this happen on live television and now we need to know what law enforcement did to deal with this.”

In 2015, the Police Department, along with federal and state prosecutors signed an agreement that allows the FBI to investigate some officer-involved shootings and excessive force complaints against Kansas City police officers.

Three years earlier, Peters Baker created a “use of force” committee made up of a retired circuit court judge, senior-level assistant prosecutors and herself.

The group can recommend criminal charges against a police officer in cases of excessive force. Their findings are are posted to the prosecutor’s website.

This story was originally published November 21, 2018 at 5:24 PM.