KCPD’s repeat offenders like Blayne Newton need to follow Chief Smith out the door

Kansas City Police Chief Rick Smith is at long last leaving the KCPD in 22 days. (Who’s counting? We are, along with most Black and brown Kansas Citians and not a few officers.)

The toxic, us-versus-them culture that Smith so tirelessly encouraged won’t magically disappear on April 23. But his departure does give Kansas City, and its unelected Board of Police Commissioners, with an extraordinary opportunity to change the trajectory of a troubled force.

And when he leaves, so must the handful of repeat offenders he protected from consequences.

Let’s name names: First out the door should be problem officer Blayne Newton, whose shocking behavior has been well-chronicled:

▪ After he killed Donnie Sanders, an unarmed Black man, he was as usual cleared of any wrongdoing. Sanders’ family filed a $10 million federal lawsuit.

▪ Newton placed a knee into the back of Deja Stallings, who was nine months pregnant at the time. Stallings was accused of interfering with the arrest of activist Troy Robertson of Kansas City, so this was the way to handle it? The whole horrible episode was captured on video.

▪ Newton was named in a lawsuit accusing three Kansas City police officers of beating and tasering a teenager.

Today, Newton is back on patrol duty, Kansas City Police Department officials told us on Thursday. Under Smith, there was no such thing as a bad shooting, and who did that hurt? The over-policed, most of all, but also the officers who do the right thing day in and day out.

Newton isn’t an isolated case, either. Kansas Citians are now familiar with the department’s brutality and discrimination, and we must insist on a thorough process to find a chief who wants to do things differently.

The new chief will have to look closely at the ranks. He or she will inherit Newton and other officers whose actions have fostered suspicion and distrust in the police department. That distrust has been hard-earned, according to a year-long investigative report from The Star on the department’s internal issues with racism.

It’s long past time for every single person in the police department to understand that excessive violence and brutality against citizens will no longer be tolerated. The new chief must make that message clear, with actions as well as words.

The Kansas City Board of Police Commissioner’s Office of Community Complaints is toothless. Reforming the complaint process must be among the first jobs for a new chief.

Police reform can no longer be an afterthought in Kansas City. Instead, the department must undergo a top-to-bottom review of its policies, including the unacceptable practice of keeping officers who face criminal charges on the payroll.

It’s long past time.