‘No wrongdoing’? KCK deserves details about disoriented police officer in viral video | Opinion

We watched the video of a disorientated Kansas City, Kansas, police officer’s odd behavior while on duty. We saw what we saw. The officer, who was responding to a call over a child custody dispute in Wyandotte County, appeared to be in bad shape.

Video of the January incident posted on social media showed the officer in an incoherent state at an apartment complex. One onlooker said what many viewers surely thought: “You’re high as (expletive), dude.”

Nothing to see here, department officials told us this week, months after footage of the officer’s actions made its rounds on the internet.

In a statement, KCK police officials brushed off allegations that the officer was under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

“On January 23, 2023, the KCKPD initiated an internal affairs investigation stemming from a widely viewed videotaped interaction between one of our officers and a resident during a call for service,” the statement read. “Based on that investigation, it was determined that there was no wrongdoing on the part of the officer.”

Privacy laws, both state and federal, prohibit the department from telling us exactly what ailed the officer, who appeared clearly impaired on the night in question.

The officer passed a “fit for duty” examination conducted by several medical professionals, department officials said. But when? And who were the professionals that examined him, and what did they find out about the lawman’s condition?

Doesn’t the public deserve a full accounting of the officer’s behavior? And what about the police sergeant who was summoned to the scene and allowed the officer to drive his squad car away if he was experiencing a medical emergency, as police officials told us then?

“I don’t have the knowledge or ability to answer this question, because it is part of the administrative investigation,” a spokesperson for KCK police said.

No formal complaint was filed, and residents seen and heard in the video refused to cooperate with the internal affairs investigation, according to police.

The department’s internal findings are under review by the director of the patrol bureau, who will make a final recommendation regarding the actions of the officer and his supervisors. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait months to learn if department rules were violated.

We’ve long held that police agencies conducting only internal investigations into alleged wrongdoing by one of their own is bad policy. Quite often, those in-house inquiries yield very little in terms of public accountability or consequences for officers who run afoul of the law or department rules. Public agencies must have checks and balances.

In the video footage circulating in social media, the officer in question appeared in bad shape. But only after one of the clips went viral did Police Chief Karl Oakman announce an internal probe into what ailed the cop.

That is unacceptable for the people of Wyandotte County. The police department owes the public more than canned statements about the on-duty behavior of one of its officers.

A little transparency could go a long way in reestablishing trust with a community that seldom has confidence in the public agency tasked with protecting public safety.

This story was originally published April 14, 2023 at 2:29 PM.