‘I didn’t feel safe’: KC residents’ distrust of police sparks fear, drives violent crime

Monecia Smith was awakened in the middle of the night by a loud bang on the door of a home she shares with family near 26th Street and Benton Avenue in Kansas City.

On that cold night in January, a man on the run from a gun-wielding assailant sought help with a panicked knock. He ran from Smith’s home to a neighbor’s to escape a hail of bullets.

Smith, who watched what was transpiring on her front porch via home surveillance video, saw a man without a shirt who looked scared and confused. He was in danger.

“I could see the muzzle (flash) of gunfire,” Smith, a mother of four, said.

The man, identified as Derrick Smith, 31, of Kansas City, was killed. Smith’s surveillance system did not capture the entire deadly encounter.

Officers found Derrick Smith, who is not related to Monecia Smith, unresponsive near a home on Benton Avenue. He died at a hospital of a gunshot wound.

Video footage would have provided a key piece of evidence for homicide detectives investigating the shooting. Still, Monecia Smith refused to hand over the home surveillance video.

She said she didn’t trust a police department that she believes profiles and criminalizes Black people. Her reticence to cooperate with the investigation, even as an innocent bystander, points to larger systemic issues in Kansas City, where distrust in police contributes to spiking rates of gun violence.

Too many Black residents in Kansas City question whether law enforcement will protect and serve their neighborhoods. In the urban core, police have struggled to build working relationships and confidence in the criminal justice system.

Law enforcement cannot engender community trust if it is seen as an occupying force.

Monecia Smith pointed to the questionable shooting deaths of Ryan Stokes, Terrance Bridges, Donnie Sanders and others at the hands of Kansas City police officers.

None have been charged in relation to the deadly encounters. Some are still patrolling the streets.

“There have been too many cases where nothing was done,” Monecia Smith said. “My trust for police has gone down the drain.”

Community trust and gun violence

Monecia Smith was one of more than 75 residents, activists, faith leaders and survivors of gun violence interviewed by The Star for its first report as part of the Missouri Gun Violence Project, undertaken in partnership with the nonprofits Report for America and Missouri Foundation for Health.

Her story illustrates the chasm that exists between Kansas City Police and too many Black residents.

People are more likely to obey the law when they believe police are legitimate, decades of research has shown.

And trust starts with reconciliation, a reality that Kansas City police can no longer ignore, said Thomas C. O’Brien, a psychologist and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

“If people don’t trust the police, it is because a very severe injustice has occurred,” he said.

Police create an environment of fear in Black neighborhoods that ultimately erodes public safety, many residents told The Star.

Missouri leads the nation in the rate at which Black people were fatally shot. And in Kansas City — a city that is 30% African American — roughly three-quarters of homicide victims this year were Black.

‘I didn’t feel safe’ with detective

Investigators learned of Monecia Smith’s video when they combed the neighborhood near her home on Benton Avenue for clues in the death of Derrick Smith.

Monecia Smith let a member of Derrick Smith’s family view footage of the incident but refused access to a detective with the Kansas City Police Department, according to a complaint she filed with the Office of Community Complaints.

The detective insisted on a one-on-one meeting inside her home, Monecia Smith said.

“I didn’t feel safe with him in my house,” she said.

The next day, police in tactical gear returned to execute a search warrant for Smith’s video. Officers kicked in her door while she was at work. She rushed home after a neighbor alerted her to the raid.

“They did all of that for a DVR?” Smith said.

As Smith watched the scene unfold from the street, an unnamed officer can be heard on video footage saying, “Go out and make sure these detectives are OK, ‘cause this bitch, (inaudible) she’s getting crazy.”

“Why did I deserve that?” Smith said.

Smith’s grievance was sustained by the Office of Community Complaints, a civilian agency tasked with holding the police accountable. The toothless, opaque agency lacks the tools and independence to do so, though, and lacks the power to independently investigate officer-involved shootings.

That the officer was cited for improper conduct in Smith’s case was a surprising result — the Office of Community Complaints finds officers culpable in only 3% of all cases. But whether there were any consequences for the officer’s misconduct remains an open question.

Citing privacy laws, OCC and Kansas City police officials declined to identify the officer involved or disclose whether he was disciplined.

Smith remains skeptical of the police. Years of distrust have fostered a hostile relationship, she said.

Most non-fatal shootings and homicides go unsolved because of a lack of witnesses, experts say.

In Kansas City, that lack of cooperation has fed a vicious cycle of violent crimes. The result is a record number of homicides in 2020. This week, the city recorded its 156th homicide, making this the deadliest year on record. And it’s only October.

While myriad factors contribute to the city’s crime rates, experts agree that a lack of trust and disparate treatment by police stymie crime-reduction efforts.

Monecia Smith wasn’t a victim of gun violence, but she could have provided investigators with valuable information about a homicide. Her experiences with law enforcement convinced her that she couldn’t trust the police.

“My family, we live in fear,” Smith said of the police. “Why should we trust them?”

Call for Chief Rick Smith’s resignation

For years, the Ad Hoc Group Against Crime has worked in coordination with Kansas City police to help solve gun crimes.

The group billed itself as a trusted bridge between the community and law enforcement. But that relationship has deteriorated, said Damon Daniels, Ad Hoc’s executive director.

This summer, he called for the resignation of Police Chief Rick Smith, citing the fact that the city’s top law enforcement officer rarely, if ever, disciplines officers accused of wrongdoing.

Rick Smith failed to condemn officers’ conduct after excessive force and police brutality cases were made public. And the chief has impeded several inquiries into officer misconduct, according to Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker.

The chief is a visible presence in the city’s predominantly white Northland area, critics say. He is seldom seen south of the Missouri River in predominantly Black neighborhoods, residents say, further sowing seeds of discord with the minority community.

Rick Smith has decried the violent crime that has plagued Kansas City, announcing anti-violence plans and pledging to deliver results. But until the chief and his officers confront the distrust that has festered in neighborhoods that have been overpoliced and underserved by law enforcement, they will continue to fall far short of the mark.

Police departments across the country struggle with the concept of reconciliation, O’Brien said. He co-authored with Yale professor Tom Tyler a review published this year on how to rebuild trust between police and communities with procedural justice and reconciliation.

The findings were clear, O’Brien said. From a procedural standpoint, officers must treat individuals they encounter with a level of courtesy and respect.

“On the ground interactions are very impactful,” O’Brien said. “From a reconciliation standpoint, police must acknowledge the reason for distrust.”

Trust is earned, not given, Daniels said. Under Rick Smith, the department has done little to repair a bridge that appears to be broken with the African-American and other communities of color.

“It starts with leadership,” Daniels said. “Do we have the right leadership for reconciliation? The answer is no.”

This story was originally published October 18, 2020 at 5:00 AM.