SOS to DOJ: Letter asks for help with ‘serial rapist with a badge’ on KCK streets | Opinion
Once again, the civil rights community has written to Attorney General Merrick Garland and other top officials at the Department of Justice, begging them to send in a team of outside federal investigators capable of excavating decades of corruption at the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department and the Wyandotte County District Attorney’s Office.
“With no other choice,” says the new letter, signed by The Metro Organization for Racial and Economic Equity (MORE2), the ACLU of Kansas and other advocates, “we write to your office again requesting intervention into the law enforcement offices in Kansas City, Kansas. Perhaps we are naive, but we still believe it is the federal government’s responsibility to be the force of good when local government shows it is not.”
Naive, no, but still willing to hope that federal law enforcement can be a force for good.
Because if it can’t do that, even in a situation this extreme and endless, don’t we have to wonder what it would take?
The first letter was sent in February of last year, and this one is set to go out on Tuesday.
The problem, as the new 32-page letter lays out in great detail, is that the two federal indictments of former detective Roger Golubski haven’t ended the criminality and silencing that made his alleged predations possible.
In fact, making him out to be the sole bad guy with a gun and a badge allows business as usual to continue uninterrupted, and who does that benefit?
“The indictment was a relief for the community,” the letter says, “but, unfortunately, does not come close to addressing the myriad of issues present within the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department. This department has been infected with corruption, crime, and a complete lack of regard for the liberties and rights of the people for whom the department has sworn to serve and protect.”
“This letter will present evidence that unethical and illicit behavior by KCKPD is perpetuated to this day and officers are not held responsible for these wrongs. The system that allowed Golubski’s behavior to fester and flourish has made no substantive changes and is quick to publicly deny accountability, regarding the veteran detective as an anomaly, rather than a systemic problem.”
Lamonte McIntyre, Pete Coones wrongly convicted
That Golubski was a symptom of the system’s corruption rather than its cause has been obvious for years. Yet the only change is that the department has begun to make vague claims that it has changed. And from what, since supposedly, nothing was ever wrong to begin with?
“This is why a DOJ investigation is imperative,” the letter says. “The Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas has shown it is incapable of addressing the past, or meaningfully looking into it, or even keeping the unit tasked with the duty operational. Essentially, since 2017, two people have been exonerated for convictions which were the result of KCKPD misconduct and at the very least, the District Attorney’s Office’s gross negligence.”
These, of course, are Lamonte McIntyre, who served 23 years for a double murder he did not commit, and the late Pete Coones, who served 12 for a murder he did not commit.
Yet the question about how many other Wyandotte County cases involved wrongdoing by law enforcement has never been answered, and never will be without federal intervention.
The cases that we do know about involve, as the letter says, “fabricated and/or coerced evidence; failing to disclose exculpatory evidence; coaching informants and/or witnesses into giving false testimony; threatening informants or witnesses into cooperating.” The department also persists in “failing to investigate homicides where the victim is a minority addict or sex worker.”
The only part of that with which I disagree is the term “sex worker.” That makes it seem like the women who were preyed upon by Golubski and others had a choice, when no, they didn’t. Sexual servitude is more like it.
But to me, there is no quibbling with this assertion: “Frankly, because of the breadth of corruption and constitutional violations, the DOJ is the only independent agency with sufficient resources to properly investigate and address the Unified Government.”
Or this one: “This community had to live with a serial rapist walking around the streets with a badge around his neck, and could not do a single thing about it. As such, the signatories to this letter, who all share a common interest in wanting the Civil Rights Division to open a pattern and practice investigation into KCKPD, ask that you read this letter with care and schedule a meeting at your earliest convenience.”
DA Mark Dupree’s integrity unit has done little
The community got its hopes up when District Attorney Mark Dupree created a Community Integrity Unit to review possible police misconduct and wrongful convictions.
So what has Dupree done? Suspiciously little — and again, why?
As the letter notes, “Two out of the three people in that unit were fired for racist and homophobic comments. Then, when the DA gets the right lawyer, in the right position, to do the right work, he resigns within a year. To date, the conviction integrity unit has not convinced the public that it is offering redress.”
Of course it hasn’t.
Meanwhile, victims who have come forward remain terrified, and with good reason. As one of them told me recently, “none of us have any safety net.” And while Golubski, who is 70 and in renal failure, is at least theoretically under house arrest, his many defenders and enablers with secrets of their own are not.
That’s a dangerous situation, and one the DOJ could change if it chose to do so.
This story was originally published November 13, 2023 at 5:03 AM.
