‘Driving a wedge’: Kansas City leaders condemn push to end residency rule for police
The price of banning police chokeholds in Missouri may be repealing a rule that Kansas City officers live in the city.
Missouri lawmakers have combined a proposal to lift the residency requirement with a criminal justice reform measure that would ban neck restraints and prohibit sex with detainees. The result is a larger package that could pave the way for officers to live outside city limits.
But the idea is encountering stiff opposition from Kansas City leaders, who want officers closer to the people they serve.
Mayor Quinton Lucas said Tuesday the legislation would exacerbate racial tensions. He said undoing the residency requirement “does not save a life, does not mentor a child, does not take a deadly weapon out of the hands of a repeat offender.”
“This legislation turns a blind eye to the interests of Kansas Citians, driving a wedge between our community and our police,” Lucas said in a statement. “This legislation will damage the safety of our community.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee merged separate bills repealing the residency rule and banning chokeholds on Monday and sent the combined proposal to the Senate floor.
The latest effort to end the residency requirement for more than 1,300 Kansas City officers comes after a record 182 homicides in 2020 and protests last summer against police misconduct in the wake of the killing of George Floyd. It also marks another possible state intervention into a police department not controlled by city hall.
In addition to lifting the residency rule, the legislation bars officers from using “respiratory choke holds,” which include placing pressure on someone’s neck to restrict their breathing. The measure also makes sexual conduct with a prisoner or detainee a felony.
The combination is proving troublesome for some state legislators representing Kansas City and enjoys little to no support among local lawmakers on the City Council.
Lucas noted Kansas City already is policed by a department that’s controlled by a board of commissioners appointed by the Missouri governor. And the vast majority of officers are white in a city where 30% of the population is Black.
That, combined with allowing officers to move out of town, “makes Kansas City little more than an outpost controlled by out-state interests rather than the voices of our families and neighbors in our community on issues of safety, a key issue for so much of our city,” Lucas said.
A similar proposal lifting the rule advanced in the House last year but didn’t pass the General Assembly. The current push is being spearheaded by Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer, a Parkville Republican who is sponsored the bill eliminating the requirement. He told a Senate committee in January the rule is “archaic.”
“These men and women should not be told by the government where they must live … the right to choose where one lives is one of the most basic,” Luetkemeyer said.
Luetkemeyer, who didn’t respond to a call Tuesday, also raised concerns last month about recruiting and retaining officers. He said he had received dozens of letters from officers objecting to the rule and arguing they should be allowed to live where they want.
The General Assembly this fall voted to block a residency requirement in St. Louis, after Mayor Lyda Krewson had called for an end to it. “The purpose was to boost officer recruitment and retention. Senate 53 does the same for the KCPD,” Luetkemeyer said.
Councilwoman Melissa Robinson, 3rd District, said she had heard “no rationale” why Kansas City officers should need to live outside of Kansas City. She noted Kansas City’s geographic sprawl means it has housing for those who want to live in the urban core, suburban-style development or on near-rural land.
Already, Robinson said, Kansas City faces a problem in that residents in her urban core district feel like most officers live north of the Missouri River and don’t understand the experiences faced in racially segregated and high-crime neighborhoods.
“We have to have officers that are trusted by the community, and we need more officers, actually, that live in the urban areas...” Robinson said. “This would take us in the opposite direction.”
Asked if he supported undoing the residency requirement, Councilman Kevin O’Neill, 1st District at-large, said “absolutely not.” He said the main justification he had heard for undoing the proposal is that Kansas City can’t recruit high-quality officers who want to live in city limits.
“I disagree with that,” O’Neill said. “I think that people that want to be police officers in Kansas City, Missouri, have plenty of places they can live here.”
Cities across the country have been moving away from residency requirements for police in recent years. A 2014 analysis of Census data by FiveThirtyEight found that, on average, 60 percent of police officers lived outside city limits in the 75 U.S. cities with the largest police forces.
Kansas City’s rule has long been a source of tension between police union leaders and police department officials. Sgt. Brad Lemon, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 99, has said in the past that some officers rent trailers to skirt the requirement.
Lemon declined to comment about the proposed measure on Tuesday, but told lawmakers in January the resident rules are “antiquated” and called for their repeal.
“Our members love Kansas City and the Kansas City community,” Lemon said. “But because they have lives and families with diverse needs and desires that go beyond just them individually, they have other needs.”
The department’s top leadership has voiced support for the current rule, which ensures officers reside in the same city they serve, if not the same neighborhood.
Under the current policy, a person has to be a resident of Kansas City at the time they are hired. However, that residency requirement is waived for one year for sworn officers.
“So you have your time during the (police) academy and then you have a six-month probationary period to move to the city.” said Sgt. Jacob Becchina, a police spokesman.
Becchina said the police department is aware of the proposed measure and would comply if it becomes law.
Bishop Mark C. Tolbert, a police commissioner and senior pastor of Victorious Life Church, said his board colleagues are firm in their thinking and strongly oppose the idea of allowing officers to live outside of the city.
“I think people who work for the city and use taxpayer dollars ought to live in the city,” he said. “We need to have police people live in the community. And my thing is, if you want to live somewhere else, then that’s probably where you ought to be working.”
