High-speed pursuits and lawsuits: New chief must transform Independence police | Porter
The search for a new police chief in Independence is under way, city officials announced recently. If you ask me, the task of selecting a new leader of the state’s fifth largest police force is crucial for new City Manager Troy Anderson.
In short order, Anderson, on the job since April, must get the selection right. To do so, the city must deploy a robust public engagement process to ensure the voices of residents are not only heard but considered. Taxpayers deserve to have a say in what qualities they want in a new police chief.
Community engagement will be an important part of the search process, city spokeswoman Sherae Honeycutt wrote in an email this week. The city partnered with search firm Strategic Government Resources — the same firm that assisted with the city’s recent city manager search — to find qualified candidates for police chief, Honeycutt wrote.
“Once finalists are identified, the city plans to host a public open house where residents, community leaders, stakeholders, members of the media, and other interested parties will have the opportunity to meet the candidates, ask questions, and provide feedback,” she wrote.
“Community input will be an important component of the selection process as the city works to identify the right leader to guide the Independence Police Department into its next chapter.”
In my honest opinion, the Independence Police Department is in turmoil. To say a culture change is needed would be quite an understatement. Whoever the city lands on, the new chief must possess enough experience and have the right temperament to address the issues that have plagued the department in recent years. Independence needs a transformational leader not someone who will uphold the status quo.
No disrespect to the men and women in blue that serve the Independence community but consider: the agency has had five permanent, acting or interim chiefs since 2021; more than a dozen discrimination lawsuits have been filed by officers against their own department over the last three years, according to a search of online court records; and officers conducted last year far more vehicle pursuits than other agencies nearby in Kansas City, KCK, Lee’s Summit and Blue Springs combined, police data shows.
- Last year, a New Year’s Eve police chase that ended in Kansas City cost 47-year-old Daniel Perez Sanchez his life. Sanchez was an innocent bystander.
- Another pursuit last month in Independence left four people injured.
- In 2024, two motorists died as a result of Independence pursuits.
In addition, the city recently agreed to settle a wrongful death lawsuit with the family of an Independence woman and the father of her infant child for $6 million, the largest police brutality settlement in Missouri history, according to KCUR. The family of Maria Pike and the father of her infant child Destinii Hope filed the suit after Pike and Destinii were fatally shot by a now former Independence officer in November 2024.
Another wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of 39-year-old Tyrea Pryor was still pending this week. Last year, the mothers of Pryor’s three children sued three IPD officers in Jackson County Circuit Court for their alleged involvement in Pryor’s fatal shooting after a car chase in 2022.
And that is just a small sample size of some of the issues affecting the department that we know about.
“We need to have somebody who is broadly respected,” former Independence City Councilman Jason White told me during a phone interview this week. White has been very outspoken about the department’s penchant for high-speed police pursuits and has spoken publicly about the need for a revised policy that would limit such pursuits.
“We need to have somebody who can look people in the eye and say, ‘I’ve been there, done that’ and will bring the respect of the young officers and the command staff and the citizens,” White continued. “We are in the midst of lots of lawsuits, which are expensive. We’ve got like a dozen lawsuits against the department by department employees, which means there’s a lot of internal strife. We can’t be experimenting with this. We’ve got to have somebody that’s going to command respect and be able to lead that department for a good 10 years.”
Independence needs a police chief not afraid of rocking the boat and holding officers accountable for their behavior on and off duty. And the public must have input on who that new leader should be.
