Kansas City police held discipline hearing. Here’s why KCPD says public can’t watch
The Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners said Friday it held the first disciplinary hearing for an employee that, under a new Missouri law, was closed to the public.
But one media lawyer believes two state statutes on the issue conflict — and that a court might need to settle the matter.
Community members and reporters used to be able to attend the hearings, some of which were also streamed online by the Kansas City Police Department. But the 9 a.m. hearing was not accessible to the public because of the new law, a police spokesman said.
Dubbed a “police bill of rights,” the law put into place procedural protections for officers facing disciplinary investigations. Records of the hearing will be sealed and exempt from disclosure under the Sunshine Law unless ordered released by subpoena or court order.
Previously, the public could watch the hearings, during which officers facing discipline and the police board, which oversees the department, were allowed to call witnesses and present evidence. The board also published a schedule of disciplinary hearings that included the names of the officers. But under the new law, the public won’t know the officer’s name or the allegations they face.
“If we don’t know who it is, how does the community know when they’ve administered justice in specific cases?” Lora McDonald, executive director of MORE2, a local social justice organization, asked Friday. “The more individual officers are protected, the less safe the community is.”
Police unions nationally, including the one in Kansas City, have argued that disciplinary hearings and relevant records should remain closed to the public.
“No other public or private employee in the entire state was held to a standard where their discipline was placed out for public view,” said Sgt. Brad Lemon, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 99, which represents KCPD officers.
Jean Maneke, an attorney for the Missouri Press Association, said there appeared to be a conflict in state law because another, older statute says hearings before the police board will be public. She said she is always surprised to find that a law conflicts with another that has not been dealt with in the legislative process, which then requires a court to decide which should be upheld.
The public benefits from open hearings and has a strong interest in whether officers are doing their jobs properly, Maneke said. There has been a recent effort to create a paper trail of officers found guilty of misconduct so hiring agencies know their records.
“By keeping that kind of information secret, these law enforcement officers have a tendency to just bounce around from one agency to another,” she said.
Sgt. Jake Becchina, a police spokesman, alerted news outlets to the change Friday morning after an inquiry from a Star reporter, saying the meeting was closed at headquarters downtown. He said he did not want reporters showing up to be “surprised.”
“We comply with the new law passed in 2021” and provisions associated with it, Becchina told The Star.
Asked about Maneke’s comments, Becchina said the police department did not see a conflict with the old statute. He said the department is “abiding by the spirit and intent” of the new law.
Police bills of rights have been under scrutiny nationally amid a push for police reform. As of last year, they had been written into law in more than a dozen other states.
When the proposed Missouri law was before lawmakers last year, Sen. Bill Eigel, a Weldon Springs Republican, said it would allow for a fairer disciplinary system for officers who “are under more scrutiny and more pressure today than they have been in my memory.”
In recent years, the Kansas City police board has not overturned the recommendation by a chief to terminate an officer.
Another disciplinary hearing is set for May 13. That hearing will also be closed to the public, police said.
This story was originally published February 25, 2022 at 1:20 PM.
