KCPD ran up overtime with officers at George Floyd protests. Here’s how much it cost
As hundreds of people gathered in Kansas City in recent weeks to demonstrate against police brutality, the city’s police department assigned numerous officers, some in tactical gear, to the protests.
The department soon accumulated an overtime bill.
Kansas City Police Department spokesman Sgt. Jake Becchina said in an email Friday that the department “incurred $2.1 million in overtime and other expenditures” associated with protests in Kansas City following the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
The demonstrations at times drew hundreds or thousands of protesters to parts of the city including the Country Club Plaza. The police department deployed many police officers who lined the street in tactical gear in the first days of the protests.
The exact number of department members involved with policing the protests was not immediately available Sunday, but Becchina described the number as being in the hundreds. He estimated overtime was paid out for at least each of the first seven days of protests.
“There weren’t many department members that didn’t have SOME duty or responsibility, many were during on duty shifts but most of those shifts extended beyond regular hours,” he said in a written response Sunday.
“Nearly every member that worked the protests worked beyond their normal tour of duty. Officers were advised to be ready for 12 hour days,” Becchina continued. “It was seemingly the whole department that contributed.”
About 20 officers were injured in the first three days of protests, with two receiving more serious injuries that required hospitalization, Becchina said at the time.
Some of the officers were injured when protesters threw water bottles and other items at officers.
Police at times deployed pepper spray, tear gas and less-lethal weapons against protesters. A number of protesters were seriously injured by tear gas, bean bag rounds and other projectiles during the protests. One man who said he was hit with a police-fired rubber bullet told The Star he may lose his left eye.
At least 230 people were arrested in the first week of protests in Kansas City, which began May 29. Most protesters, accused of not complying with police’s order, could have their charges dropped under an ordinance a City Council committee passed earlier this month.
The KCPD is budgeted to get $273 million this fiscal year, the most of any division in the city. This amounts to 16% of the city’s $1.7 billion budget. That works out to about $554 for each of the estimated 492,000 people who were living within the city limits at last count.
Most of the KCPD’s budget goes to pay the salaries and benefits of its personnel, roughly 1,400 sworn officers and 600 civilian workers.
This story was originally published June 28, 2020 at 2:42 PM.
