KC still doesn’t have public dashboard tracking citizen complaints about police

By now, Kansas City was supposed to have a public dashboard tracking citizens’ complaints against police officers and on-duty use-of-force incidents.

Last summer, during protests against police brutality, the Kansas City Council adopted a resolution calling for a public-facing use-of-force database. City Manager Brian Platt was asked to develop a dashboard of data that the Kansas City Police Department would provide on a regular basis.

But nine months later, it still hasn’t happened.

In most professions, ignoring those who pay your salary would get you fired.

But in Kansas City, defiance is par for the course for Police Chief Rick Smith. He gets away with it because under the police department’s governance structure, Smith effectively answers to no one.

So why would the City Council, the entity which approved the KCPD’s $273 million budget, expect him to suddenly pay any attention to anything those who sign his checks say?

City officials first met with police last September to walk through the details of the original request. Yet the department has yet to provide any information on complaints against problem police officers.

And the KCPD’s argument that more funding is needed to comply is a slap in the face to the community, Mayor Quinton Lucas said.

Money is not an issue, Lucas said. The KCPD just doesn’t want to share more data with the public.

“It is incredibly frustrating,” Lucas said. “Something like this should be without controversy.”

Kansas City Police are working through compliance and regulatory issues, a spokesperson for the department said.

Meanwhile, the civilian-led oversight committee rarely sustains a complaint against an officer.

Smith refuses to hand over probable cause statements in cases involving police brutality or officer-involved shootings. He has been hesitant to discipline problem officers, some of whom are repeat offenders. And taxpayers continue to pay the cost of litigation for police who break the law.

What’s changed in the last year? Very little. Officers are now equipped with body cameras and the Missouri Highway Patrol is investigating officer-involved shootings.

But that the department still isn’t giving the public more information shows how little its leadership cares about even the appearance of accountability.