‘Walking while Black’: Video shows why new Independence police chief must be outsider

The Independence Police Department must look outside its ranks to permanently fill the police chief position. Only new leadership can make the changes necessary for a department in need of a shift in culture. Public input during the search for a new chief is vitally important.

City Manager Zach Walker has not announced how community members will weigh in on the search. Walker is paid well, with a yearly compensation package of more than $226,000, to decide who is best to lead an agency embroiled in an overtime controversy. But residents of Independence, a town with a population of about 116,000 people, must have a say in who their new chief will be.

Independence officials retained Chicago-based recruiting firm GovHR USA to head the search, which kicked off last week, a spokesperson for Independence City Hall said this week. More details about the process, including public participation, are forthcoming, city officials said. Independence would like to have a new chief in place by June.

Reform is desperately needed. A Kansas City man filed a lawsuit claiming that he was tased, choked and beaten by an Independence police officer while walking down the street.

“You’re being detained. You’re going to be tased.” Independence Police Officer Tanner Philip screamed at Justin Layton of Kansas City, after he was accused of jaywalking, or “walking while Black,” as Layton calls it, in Independence on Valentine’s Day two years ago.

In a city where police solved just 34 of 64 homicides between 2013-20, according to available data, surely the officer had more important work to do.

Layton claimed the incident, partly captured on police dashcam video, involved Philip and three other officers with the Independence Police Department, who were white. Independence has 185 sworn officers, according to a spokesman for the department. Only one is African American.

The police department is under investigation after an officer became the city’s highest paid employee last year for overtime work on a construction project.

The fallout from that has resulted in multiple changes in department leadership. Police Capt. Adam Dustman is interim acting chief, having replaced acting Chief Ken Jarnagin, who was placed on leave in wake of the overtime inquiry.

Jarnagin filled in for former Police Chief Brad Halsey, who retired in December amid internal issues.

The joint investigation by city officials and outside counsel will determine how one officer managed to pile up more than $160,000 in overtime pay, which in addition to his $100,000 annual salary made the officer the highest-paid Independence employee last year.

The culture of the Independence Police Department needs to change drastically, and only a new chief from outside the organization can do that.

For far too long, Independence police officers have spent too much of their time stopping and detaining residents who pose no threat to public safety. How do we know that? From 2013-2020, 49% percent of arrests made in Independence were for low-level offenses, according to a scorecard on police departments around the nation.

The agency was rated among the worst in the state by Police Scorecard, an independent group that studied the department’s use of force incidents, arrest data and accountability measures.

A new leader with a community-first approach could be just what the city needs to reduce violent crime and boost its homicide clearance rate.

This story was originally published March 24, 2022 at 5:00 AM.