KCK corruption is bigger than Golubski, new indictments say. Where’s the investigation?

Now that a new round of federal indictments alleges what nearly everyone has believed for years about former Kansas City, Kansas, police detective Roger Golubski — namely that he was far more than just a predator hiding behind his badge — will Wyandotte County District Attorney Mark Dupree, the Unified Government, Mayor Tyrone Garner and the police department itself finally launch full-scale investigations into the depth of official corruption in the city?

The answer must be yes. Quickly.

Ever since the U.S. Department of Justice indicted Golubski in September on charges of repeatedly sexually assaulting two women under “the color of law,” we have been calling on officials to treat this despicable case as what it is: a development that should and could taint scores of other cases, if not many more, touched by Golubski.

But there’s more. The indictments suggest, at the very least, a culture of corruption during the disgraced former detective’s reign of terror that protected him from consequence. Yet our recommendations for a wide-scale investigation, and the protests of an anguished community, have largely been ignored.

Local authorities must make an investigation of the Golubski years their highest priority.

We also repeat our call for the Justice Department to investigate systemic racism and corruption in the KCK police, with the goal of reaching a consent decree with the department forbidding similar practices in the future.

Consent decrees set standards for anti-discriminatory behavior, and allow federal oversight of departments that ignore civil rights concerns. They’ve been used before — Cleveland, Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles and Ferguson, Missouri.

A federal investigation remains imperative in KCK.

Golubski retired in 2010, but even then reports that he was preying on women under the cover of his shield had been circulating for years. After he finally was indicted, the biggest questions were: How could he have operated in such a predatory manner for so long, and not been stopped? Given the pattern alleged by federal prosecutors, how many convictions had been secured on now-tainted testimony from Golubski?

Who else within the department, or the wider criminal justice system in Wyandotte County, had known of Golubski’s vicious conduct, but either turned a blind eye or actively protected him?

That’s why this board has consistently called for a wider investigation into the department itself — and wherever else the facts lead. How else can Dupree know whether or not there are other cases such as that of Lamonte McIntyre, who was released from prison in 2017 after serving 23 years? How else could the public, for whom everyone in the criminal justice system works, after all, know whether the police, judges and prosecutors who served during Golubski’s reign of terror had not also been corrupt?

To each of these suggestions, we’ve heard only silence, or partial commitments. To his credit, Dupree told the editorial board he’d investigate every case brought before him that had involved Golubski. But as we said then, that’s simply not enough. The county’s top prosecutor must himself identify every case that Golubski touched, and determine whether there are grounds to believe it was tainted. Waiting for others to complain is absurd.

Even more important, where is the KCKPD’s own investigation into whether current or former officers and their commanders played a role in facilitating Golubski’s terror? So far, the department has, to all outward appearances, kept its head in the sand as federal prosecutors have finally begun acting.

Monday’s indictments, the second round, are both infuriating and heartbreaking. They allege that Golubski used his badge to protect loathsome acts. Three other men were indicted — Cecil Brooks, LeMark Roberson and Richard Robinson — and charged with “conspiring, decades ago, to hold young women in a condition of involuntary sexual servitude.”

The indictment further alleges “Brooks, Roberson and Robinson are also charged in a substantive count with holding a young woman, identified as Person 1, in a condition of involuntary servitude; and Brooks, Roberson and Golubski are charged in a substantive count with holding another young woman, Person 2, in a condition of involuntary servitude.”

Involuntary servitude means slavery. Not 150 years ago, but here in the Kansas City metropolitan area, easily within the lifetime of even the region’s youngest adults. Not just slavery, but held under the threat (and apparent reality) of repeated rape. Rape and violence that occurred at a facility purportedly established to provide safe haven for vulnerable young women. All done, according to the Justice Department’s indictments, by men operating under the protection of a senior member of the local police department.

It’s nauseating. Meanwhile, where is the housecleaning — or even the internal audit — at the police department? Where is the outraged prosecutor, determined to find out how deep the taint runs? Why, for that matter, did it take so achingly long for the DOJ to act?

We don’t know, but if this latest round of indictments doesn’t force both institutions to shake off their slumber and treat this as the full-scale threat to their own integrity, and to level with the public, then perhaps nothing will.

This story was originally published November 15, 2022 at 10:12 AM.