Controversial decision allows Kansas City police to now live outside city in Kansas suburbs
The Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners voted Tuesday to expand the department’s residency requirement into Kansas, as long as officers live within a 30 mile radius of the city limits.
This means that officers can now live in Johnson and Wyandotte County, an unprecedented move by the board.
Tuesday’s decision came less than a year after the board approved a resolution allowing officers to live outside the city limits, but only in Missouri. This change followed a measure passed by the Missouri General Assembly that lifted the long standing Kansas City residency requirement.
The Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 99 police union pushed lawmakers to make the change.
Prior to the new law, Kansas City sworn officers were required to live in the city for one year before beginning their employment, and civilian workers had nine months to relocate into the city. They were required to live within city limits throughout their employment with the police department.
Last summer, Deputy Chief Mike Wood said he knew of officers from other agencies would have wanted to make a lateral transfer to Kansas City but decided against it to remain in Kansas because of better schools and lower taxes.
During a police board meeting in 2020, police union president Brad Lemon admitted to commissioners that some officers rent trailers and keep two homes to skirt rules that require them to live within the city limits.
“I do think this will help with recruiting,” Kansas City Police Chief Rick Smith said during Tuesday’s BOPC meeting. “I don’t think there’s any magic bullet in any of this.”
The department and city have been trying to remedy staffing shortages at the department. KCPD said they will put $4 million of the coming year’s budget allocation beginning May 1 toward hiring 88 sworn police officers.
KCPD has also faced criticism for the demographics of its force. In a city that’s 28% Black, only 11.6% of officers are Black. And, in 2021, while 78% of homicide victims in Kansas City were Black, only about 9% of the detectives investigating the city’s killings were Black.
A recent year-long investigation by The Star into racism in Kansas City’s police department found that over the past 15 years, at least 18 Black officers identified by the newspaper have left the department because of the racist treatment they endured.
On Tuesday, BOPC member Dawn Cramer said expanding the geographic boundaries would allow KCPD to recruit “Black African American” officers from Wyandotte County, adding that it could make another 35,000 Black individuals in Kansas eligible to join Kansas City’s police force.
Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas, who also sits on the police board, countered that expanding the boarders isn’t proven to enhance recruitment or retention. He called the board’s decision a “significant mistake” that will go against attempts to build a more diverse department and improve community trust long-term.
“During the Great Resignation, there is a hiring crisis, and the way that you answer it is by making this a better place to work, better benefits, better treatment of folks on your staff,” Lucas said. “It isn’t just throwing off rules that for years have been intended to keep Kansas Citians closer to their police department.”
The mayor, who has long opposed removing any residency requirements, went on to say that the decision “reverses and undermines” previous BOPC decisions, the community and the City Council, which has opposed modifying the residency requirement for police officers in the past.
“At a time when our community is seeking closer connections with those who police our neighborhoods, the board’s decision will build a less diverse department less familiar with Kansas City,” he wrote.
Darron Edwards, lead pastor for the United Believers Community Church, who attended Tuesday’s police board meeting said it is totally impossible for the police department to say that they prioritize community policing while at the same time making a decision to expand residency requirements.
“We already have police officers from other divisions coming into a different division to help out. That is a ticking time bomb for something egregious to happen,” Edwards told The Star.
“With this expanded residency, KCPD and the BOPC has set off a nuclear bomb,” he said. “Now, you will have rural officers trying to understand urban centers with little to no training.”
When asked to comment on the decision Tuesday, Police Chief Rick Smith, who is set to step down on Friday, declined to speak to The Star.
Last year, when the Missouri General Assembly passed the residency measure, Sen. Barbara Washington and Greg Razer said they hadn’t intended the law to give a path for Kansas City officers to live in Kansas.
“I would be very disappointed if they find some technicality to go around the intention of the legislature,” Razer said at the time.
This story was originally published April 19, 2022 at 4:45 PM.
