A year after disgraced ex-cop Golubski died, KCK women say they’re still fighting
Editor’s note: This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is at risk of self-harm, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline provides 24-hour support at 988. It also discusses sexual violence and may contain triggers for those who have experienced sexual abuse. The Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault provides a 24-hour crisis line, counseling and other services for Kansas City area residents at 816-531-0233 and 913-642-0233.
Their fight for justice outlasts Roger Golubski’s death. And they say they won’t stop until they get the one thing they haven’t had for decades.
Peace.
“Not the peace that comes from silence or avoidance, but the peace that springs from truth and the commitment to doing what is right,” said local Minister LeAundra Boyice on a brisk Tuesday morning.
She’s among a group of protestors who called on local leadership to conduct a thorough internal investigation of the city and the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department. The group included some of the former detective’s victims and their family members, faith leaders and supporters. They gathered at sunup outside the city’s main government building in downtown KCK.
Protestors said they’re not going to let Golubski’s suicide last year excuse the government from what they called decades of police misconduct and systemic racism.
“There has been no redress, compensation or admission of wrongdoing by KCKPD or the Unified Government,” according to a news release from the Metro Organization for Racial and Economic Equity (More2), which organized the event.
Last week marked a year since the infamous former KCK police officer killed himself the day he was due in court ahead of his highly-anticipated federal trial.
Golubski, 71 at the time of his death, would have stood trial for six felony counts from his time as a KCKPD officer in the 1990s and early 2000s. He was accused of using his official power to rape women and promote fear and violence among KCK’s predominantly Black neighborhoods.
He had been indicted in two federal cases. Prosecutors in one case accused him of raping two women, one as young as 13 when the abuse began. The second case centered on Golubski’s years of alleged abuse of power and allegedly protecting a known drug kingpin who ran an underage sex-trafficking ring in KCK.
Leading up to the trial, up to nine women had been ready to tell a jury in federal court that Golubski raped, stalked or attempted to assault them.
Then, hours after Golubski’s death, a federal judge dismissed the case against him, meaning those women never had a chance to testify.
But these women, and a federal lawsuit that some of them — and local organizations — are trying to appeal the dismissal of, still want to be heard and for local officials to take further action. They claimed that the Unified Government and officers working with and around Golubski were complicit in his crimes.
“The Unified Government permitted this unlawful terrorization by the KCKPD,” according to the initial complaint filed in November 2023. “With the full knowledge of supervisors, including the Chiefs of Police, official government authority was used to gain leverage over and coerce submission from vulnerable Black women.”
District Judge Toby Crouse dismissed that case back in January, although the original five plaintiffs that filed it are seeking an appeal. That appeals case is set for in-person oral argument on Jan. 21 in Denver, Colorado, according to court documents.
“Justice looks like the city, the police department, admitting that it wasn’t just Roger Golubski, that it is a systemic problem,” said the Rev. Rachel Williams Glenn afterward. “And because it is a systemic problem, his death didn’t solve the problem.”
‘Open up this wound again’
As Mayor Tyrone Garner’s time in office comes to a close, and as Mayor-elect Christal Watson readies to take the wheel, Williams Glenn said she wants to see increased transparency from the Unified Government, and for someone to admit that wrongdoing happened.
“You actually have to take responsibility for the missteps of the generations before you,” she said. “That is what leadership is.”
But from her perspective, the road to change, at least within the Unified Government, stopped when Golubski died.
Watson will step into office on Dec. 15. Her office in a Tuesday afternoon statement wrote that it plans to look into public concerns.
“Once we take office we plan to look into the community’s concerns with the intention to create processes and policies that truly serve all people in Wyandotte County,” said Frank Ramirez, a spokesperson for Watson, in the statement.
Maedella Henderson, a KCK resident and alleged victim of Golubski, said she also feels like the government since Golubski’s death has stalled efforts to get justice for victims. And she’s angry for victims who have since died and never got to see that justice.
“He left a lot of people in turmoil,” Henderson said of Golubski.
She said she hopes the Unified Government conducts increasingly detailed background checks on each longstanding department officer and all new recruits.
“The closure will come about, maybe open up this wound again, to bring the people that he acted with that are still here, bring them to justice,” Henderson told The Star.
Ophelia Williams of KCK, a victim named in court papers who was expected to testify during Golubski’s trial, said her two sons have been wrongly incarcerated for the past two decades in large part because of Golubski’s alleged abuse of power. He played a significant role in getting her two sons, 14 at the time, arrested and charged for murder in a case she asserts should be reopened.
After arresting her sons, Williams said Golubski repeatedly raped her in her home.
She thinks other people in the government and court system knew what Golubski was doing, “but they want to be quiet.”
And now that her sons are in adulthood, she wants them to know she hasn’t stopped trying to get answers for them.
“Ronell and Donell, I love y’all and miss y’all,” she said. “Why won’t they let you out of jail? I don’t understand.”
Officials weigh in
During a Dec. 4 public meeting, which fell two days after the year-mark of Golubski’s death, Garner chastised people whom he said accused him, the police department and the district attorney’s office of knowing what Golubski was doing and ignoring the problem.
“Shame on anybody who thinks that three Black men are going to stand by and not do anything about allegations of wrongdoing against Black women of this community, shame on you,” Garner said during the meeting, which was also his last full commission meeting in office.
He said those accusations put his safety at risk. And, he said, local government officials that preceded his, Police Chief Karl Oakman’s and District Attorney Mark Dupree’s terms did nothing about the case. It wasn’t until all three were in office, and cooperated with the federal investigations, that the federal government secured an indictment against Golubski.
Garner said people cast a broad brush over KCKPD and “try to make them responsible for the allegations that were posed against one person.”
During that same meeting, Garner named Dec. 4, 2025, as “District Attorney Dupree Day” in recognition of Dupree being the first Black district attorney in the state of Kansas.
He also lauded Dupree’s establishment of the Community Integrity Unit, “setting a new statewide standard for transparency, accountability and public trust,” according to the proclamation.
In 2020, Dupree established that unit, in part, to review cases handled by Golubski, as well as other past instances of officer misconduct or wrongful convictions in the county.
He told KCUR in August that he’s reviewing more than 19 cases involving potentially inaccurate convictions.
The Wyandotte County District Attorney’s Office told The Star that it’s unable to share how many cases it is reopening involving Golubski or otherwise. Spokespeople with the Unified Government and KCKPD said they did not have statements to give as of publication time.
This story was originally published December 9, 2025 at 5:24 PM.
