Kansas Citians don’t trust the police. How can they believe in new anti-crime plan?

Mayor Quinton Lucas and other officials have launched a new initiative aimed at reducing Kansas City’s horrific and unacceptable violent crime rate.

It includes four pillars — a focus on mental health and prevention, early intervention with criminals, better law enforcement and crime solving, and reform of city laws to give offenders a path to overcome minor violations.

The plan, dubbed The Reform Project KC, was developed through a year of discussions and private meetings.

It deserves a chance to work. Kansas City has tried for decades to address the shooting and bloodshed on the streets, with only occasional success. There’s a possibility this four-pronged structure can be successful.

But there were troubling signs Wednesday of potential cracks in the foundation.

Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker pointed out the obvious at the formal City Hall announcement. “Too many of our community’s social justice partners, civil rights groups — they are not here,” she said.

“The NAACP. The Urban League. SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference). ACLU. Several area pastors … even the Ad Hoc Group Against Crime,” she said, were not part of the announcement.

“They don’t trust us,” Baker said. “They don’t trust our plan. And they don’t trust the players that are part of it.”

Trust is the single most important element in any effort to reduce crime. Without fundamental confidence in law enforcement and prosecutions, witnesses will hide, crimes will go unsolved and criminals will escape punishment.

Yet it’s clear Kansas City lacks that trust. And the killing continues.

The Star Editorial Board has called repeatedly for local control of the Kansas City Police Department. We don’t support local control because it looks better on an organizational chart. We do so because the community does not trust a department it cannot oversee.

An independent citizens’ complaint process isn’t a shortcut to second-guessing officers. It’s a way to restore trust between the police and those who are policed. It’s that simple.

We’ve said Police Chief Rick Smith should resign or be removed. That isn’t because of his personality, but because thousands of Kansas Citians don’t trust this chief to fairly supervise his department.

Both Baker and Smith spoke at Wednesday’s announcement and promised aggressive steps to reduce crime. But the city knows that both leaders and their subordinates distrust each other. That increases the chance for dysfunction.

Lucas was clearly concerned about the apparent lack of buy-in from the communities most affected by crime.

“We spoke today knowing not everybody is here,” he said. “We will work with anybody to address violent crime issues.”

That’s a clear invitation for all parties to become involved in this effort. But they won’t come to the table until they fully trust City Hall, the courthouse and the police department. That trust simply does not exist today, though in an interview later, Lucas said otherwise.

Asked about Baker’s comments, he said, “I don’t think it’s true” the community completely distrusts the police, though he also said the relationship between the police and the policed is a challenge he was aware of “growing up as a black man in this city, long before I ever heard the name Jean Peters Baker.”

Lucas and other city leaders must make restoring trust the first priority for the community.

This story was originally published September 30, 2020 at 3:33 PM.