‘Enough is enough’: Kansas City councilman calls for KCPD chief to resign or be fired
Kansas City Councilman Eric Bunch on Tuesday called for the resignation or firing of embattled Police Chief Rick Smith, citing the department’s use of force and the city’s surging gun violence.
“How many more people in this community need to die by gun violence before this Board of Police Commissioners decides that we need new leadership?” Bunch told The Star. “I think it’s appalling.”
Bunch voiced his displeasure with Smith on Twitter during a meeting of the Board of Police Commissioners, joining a chorus of civil rights organizations that have called for Smith’s resignation or firing for months.
“Homicides are at an all time high and officer brutality is common under Smith’s leadership,” Bunch said on Twitter. “Enough is enough, Chief Smith should resign or be fired.”
Smith has no plans to resign, said Capt. David Jackson, a spokesman for the Kansas City Police Department.
Since protests began last summer, a growing chorus of community leaders — including some normally aligned with the police department — called for Smith’s resignation.
In July, The Star spoke to dozens of community members across the city and found that opinions about Smith’s performance as chief have been sharply divided by geographic and racial lines.
Bunch said he had long considered speaking out about Smith but had been reluctant to do so because there’s little he can do as a member of the City Council to influence the department.
The department is governed by a board appointed by the governor. While Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas is a board member, council members have no authority to vote on the chief’s continued employment.
A combination of things, Bunch said, drove him to speak out Tuesday. Last week, City Council members passed an ordinance authorizing the acceptance of a grant from the federal government to purchase body cameras. The department also received private funds for the cameras last summer.
On Twitter, Bunch said despite the grants to purchase the cameras, Smith was still “looking into it.” Jackson, the police spokesman, called the post “simply incorrect.”
The police department responded to Bunch on Twitter, saying cameras have been deployed in two patrol divisions and that the department hoped to have “all patrol officers outfitted by spring.”
Since early November, 340 patrol officers assigned to Jackson and Clay counties in Kansas City have been given body cameras. Another 400 body cameras will be distributed soon, police said.
The cameras are deployed as they come in, Jackson said. The vendor, Panasonic, is “inundated with orders” across the U.S., he noted.
Jackson also said the body cameras are compatible with, and in addition to, the department’s dash cameras.
While Bunch acknowledged the distribution of some body cameras, he said it was unclear what policies existed governing their deployment or the retention and release of footage.
Body cam questions
During the monthly board meeting, Smith responded to similar lingering questions that centered on privacy issues, public access and how footage would be maintained and stored.
Councilwoman Katheyrn Shields, 4th District at-large, expressed concern about an initial plan for managing the footage. Shields said the state requires police to store footage for 30 days.
“I think that ends up being woefully inadequate,” said Shields, who chairs the city’s Finance, Governance and Public Safety Committee. ”I would just respectfully ask you to look further into this, and to actually develop a policy that will meet not only the needs of the Kansas City Police Department, but also protect the rights of our citizens.”
Smith said a working group that consists of state and federal prosecutors, citizens and representatives from the city manager’s office have weighed options about how long the footage should be stored. That ranges from 120 to 180 days, he said.
“Nothing has been hardened yet in policy,” Smith said.
Commissioner Nathan Garrett said the constitutional rights of citizens and officer safety were equally critical issues.
“This is going to be a fluid process for us,” he said, adding that the policy will “undoubtedly” evolve.
Board President Don Wagner noted that Smith helped secure both private and public funding for the body cameras.
“You know we’re really proud of that fact that we were able to do that without coming to the city and asking for the money for body cameras, which is something that we’ve asked for several years,” Wagner said.
Speaking to The Star during the meeting, Bunch called the issue of body cameras the “tip of the iceberg” of his concerns with Smith. He also noted the skyrocketing number of homicides in Kansas City and prevalence of police brutality.
“Chief Smith is not doing the job we need him to do,” Bunch said.
The city suffered 182 homicides in 2020, according to data maintained by The Star, which includes seven police shootings. That’s the most killings ever in a single year in the city’s history.
In addition to breaking the homicide record, the city ended 2020 with more than 630 nonfatal shootings — a dramatic surge compared to other recent years.
Several officers have also recently been charged in use-of-force cases. That included a sergeant who was charged with assault in August for allegedly forcing his knee on the back of a teenager’s head, causing his teeth to break.
In a July interview, Smith said he believed the police department was doing a good job.
“I’m working long hours to keep the organization running and doing the best job I can,” Smith said. “There’s many perceptions of the police department. And you know, I don’t think it’s all bad, despite what some might say.”
This story was originally published January 12, 2021 at 12:41 PM.
