Wyandotte County DA announces plans for new unit to investigate police misconduct
The Wyandotte County District Attorney’s Office on Wednesday announced plans to create an independent arm to investigate accusations of excessive force or misconduct by police officers.
During a news conference, District Attorney Mark Dupree said his office hopes to add three investigators to probe complaints reported by the public, which residents will be able to submit through email and a hotline in English and Spanish.
“If we are to really bring about systematic change, we must change the systems that have allowed the act of a few bad to go unseen and unchanged,” Dupree told reporters.
The unit that will house the investigators will be an expansion of the Conviction Integrity Unit, which since its inception in August 2018 has reviewed more than 60 cases of inmates claiming to have been wrongfully convicted by the office. The unit will now be called the Community Integrity Unit.
Dupree said he has requested the funding for the additional investigators.
In the wake of George Floyd’s killing by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Dupree — who is black — said change was needed.
“We must move from anger to action,” he said.
In a statement, Khadijah Hardaway and David Grummon of More2, an advocacy organization that has called for changes in Wyandotte County, applauded Dupree’s announcement.
The investigative unit, the group said, accomplished one of three demands made by the organization in June 2019 that an independent unit be created to investigate police brutality in Kansas City, Kansas.
“With today’s announcement from DA Dupree, our demands are nearly met. Now, Mayor (David) Alvey, who we have brought these demands to for exactly one year, has the opportunity to close the deal for the safety, welfare and good will of all people of Wyandotte County, especially Kansas City, (Kansas)” by funding the investigators, the statement said.
The organization also asked for an independent bilingual complaint hotline and the firing of then Kansas City, Kansas, police Chief Terry Ziegler. He retired later in the year.
The Conviction Integrity Unit was initially created in August 2018 after the murder convictions of Lamonte McIntyre — who spent 23 years in prison for a double homicide he did not commit — were thrown out in 2017. He sued the police department in 2018, alleging a detective used sexual coercion to manipulate women into providing fabricated statements that led to his arrest.
Police agencies in the county opposed the funding of the unit in 2018.
In a letter, Ziegler, Wyandotte County Sheriff Donald Ash and two representatives of the Fraternal Order of Police called the unit a “clear deviation from the criminal justice system’s handling of manifest injustice claims” under Kansas law and warned of economic consequences if the cases were mishandled.
In an interview with The Star, Ash said he opposed the level of funding Dupree requested but believed the funding he was ultimately granted was more appropriate for the unit.
Dupree on Wednesday said he spoke with police chiefs and Ash about his planned changes to the unit. He said he hoped he would not be met with the “blunt force of the past.”
Ash said he was surprised by Wednesday’s announcement, saying he briefly spoke with Dupree that morning about potential plans, but he was not given details or told that it was an extension of the Conviction Integrity Unit.
He is planning to meet with Dupree to discuss the unit next week.
“I need to learn more, I need to hear more before I can make a firm commitment,” Ash said. “I support integrity, I support transparency in police community relations 100 percent and oversight. I am very open to those conversations.”
Ash said he welcomes outside investigation and third party review of police misconduct cases.
Before he was elected district attorney in 2017, Dupree said, a noose was passed around the office whenever a prosecutor’s jury trial resulted in a hung jury. It would be placed there before the prosecutor made it back from court, he said.
“Not only was this practice repulsive and racist, but it was illogical and culturally incompetent on behalf of the leadership of the office,” Dupree said, noting there was just one black prosecutor at the time. “What others thought as funny, another felt as pain.”
Dupree announced changes to the unit after his office charged a Kansas City, Kansas police officer, Nicholas Schafer, 36, with two counts of felony aggravated indecent liberties with a child for lewd fondling or touching of a child under the age of 14.
Kansas City, Kansas, police and Wyandotte County deputies have faced criticism for their own conduct in recent years.
In two federal lawsuits brought against the department, officers were accused of excessive force in arrests.
In one, filed in December, officers were accused of breaking into a man’s home and beating him up. Another, filed in February, accused Kansas City, Kansas, officers of beating up a detainee and sheriff’s employees of mistreating him in prison before having him deported.
Two deputies were criminally charged after they were accused of beating up an inmate in the county jail in September. Following the charges, Ash announced plans to improve training and policy regarding use of force in the department.
This story was originally published June 10, 2020 at 5:28 PM.
