Kansas City Police Department should open officer disciplinary hearings to the public
Kansas City police disciplinary hearings are now closed to the public, which means even less transparency from a department funded by tax dollars. But apparently the KCPD doesn’t want to be held accountable.
Just because a new Missouri law — dubbed the “law enforcement bill of rights” — says police disciplinary hearings can be closed, that doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.
Before last week, community members and reporters were allowed to attend the hearings. In some cases, the hearings were streamed online by the police department. Under this new law, the public won’t know the officers’ names or the allegations they face.
Police disciplinary hearings should remain open to public viewing. Residents should know about officers accused of wrongdoing and be on the lookout for problem behaviors. It’s often complaints from the public that initiate investigations into bad police behavior.
“The more individual officers are protected, the less safe the community is,” Lora McDonald, executive director of MORE2, a local social justice organization, told me. And she is right.
Police officers hold the power of life and death in their hands, and they should be held to a higher standard of professionalism and personal conduct. Shielding officers under investigation for questionable use-of-force incidents or any other misconduct does nothing to improve police community relations.
Consider the example of a complaint about the use of excessive force. Among other changes that favor the officers, the new law allows for that officer’s disciplinary record to remain sealed no matter the outcome of the hearing. In such a case, an officer could leave the KCPD and move on to another department without the public knowing about the problems that occurred previously.
Sgt. Brad Lemon, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 99, which represents Kansas City Police Department officers, argues, “No other public or private employee in the entire state was held to a standard where their discipline was placed out for public view.”
Again, police can kill people — and that’s no minor caveat. Few institutions are more entwined with everyday life than the police. That’s why we need more trust and transparency — not more secrecy.
The KCPD said it is “abiding by the spirit and intent” of the new law.
Missouri state Sen. Bill Eigel, a Republican from Weldon Spring, who sponsored the bill, said he was “seeking to strengthen officers’ due process rights when they’ve been accused of misconduct in an internal investigation.”
Police bills of rights have been under scrutiny nationally amid a push for police reform over the last few years. Laws similar to this one have passed in a dozen other states.
The Missouri law, signed by Gov. Mike Parson in July, doesn’t really give police any more due process than they already had. It only limits the right of the general public to know how officers charged with protecting their communities are behaving.
If you believe that trust comes through transparency, then this new law represents a step backward in police-community relations.
This story was originally published March 1, 2022 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Kansas City Police Department should open officer disciplinary hearings to the public."
