Kansas City and KCPD should welcome a federal probe of police employment practices

Updated 2:24 p.m., Sept. 19: This editorial was updated with a new statement from Mayor Quinton Lucas.

In a long overdue step, the U.S. Department of Justice will investigate the Kansas City Police Department to determine if there is a “pattern or practice” of racial discrimination in its employment.

We welcome the scrutiny by the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, and so should everyone in Kansas City, in and out of the police department.

“Our investigation is based on information suggesting that KCPD may be engaged in certain employment practices that discriminate against Black officers and applicants, including entry level hiring, promotions and assignments to detective, in imposing discipline, and by maintaining a hostile work environment,” the Justice Department said in its letter Monday.

Mayor Quinton Lucas, a member of the Board of Police Commissioners, applauded the investigation. “We need to make sure the Black officer, Latino officers, women officers feel respected, feel welcomed in this department,” he said Monday.

The police department’s hiring record is poor. Roughly 30% of the city’s residents are Black, yet just 12% of officers are Black. The scarcity of Black officers in the upper ranks is even worse: Just 6% of captains are Black, a Star investigation found in July. There were only three Black majors at the time.

In that investigation, one former officer told reporters that being Black in the department “was like “being a mouse in a snake cage. … You’re constantly watching your back, 24/7.”

It’s appalling. It needed to stop years ago. Perhaps the federal government can now convince the department to be inclusive in its hiring practices.

The goal? A consent decree that establishes meaningful hiring and promotion goals and real timetables for compliance. The decree should also require fresh training sessions for all officers in ways to avoid racial hostility in the workplace.

We hope the Justice Department will not limit itself to investigating statistics, however. An inclusive police department is important on its own terms, but the KCPD’s relationship with the Black community is a disaster, too.

Numbers tell only part of the story of police dysfunction in our community.

Well-publicized incidents of police brutality have eroded confidence in the department. As a result, Black Kansas Citians are often reluctant to cooperate with police investigations, and crimes go unsolved.

Many Kansas Citians simply don’t trust the police. “Trust is the only thing that actually helps us solve crime long-term,” Lucas told reporters Monday. We strongly believe that a more inclusive department would improve the relationship with the residents of the city, and reduce the crime rate.

That’s why the DOJ investigation is essential.

“We hope that the federal investigation points to the changes we know need to be made in this department,” said a statement from the Metro Organization for Racial and Economic Equity, known as MORE2, a human rights organization that has pushed for an investigation of the police.

The KCPD has promised full cooperation with the probe. In a statement, acting Police Chief Joseph Mabin said he is “committed to ensuring every (police) member experiences a safe and fair work environment.”

That’s a good start. We think the Board of Police Commissioners — which has countenanced this behavior for far too long — should issue its own statement endorsing the investigation and promising to get to the root of the issue.

But we also believe the discrimination challenges noted by the Justice Department are the product of state control of the police, which has long insulated the department from accountability for any behavior.

Monday, Lucas said the Police Board met in closed session and did not discuss the DOJ inquiry.

The DOJ’s notice also included Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt. It goes without saying that Schmitt should also back the investigation. Time will tell if he does the right thing.

Discrimination in hiring and enforcement plagues our community. The Kansas City, Kansas Police Department needs a similar federal review, as we have said for some time. But this first step, announced Monday, is welcome. It’s about time someone looked into this.

This story was originally published September 19, 2022 at 1:25 PM.