KC police are out of control. Chief Rick Smith must resign now, says Urban League CEO

In August 2017, after being sworn in as Kansas City’s new police chief, Rick Smith said he had three main goals: Set up department employees for success, reduce crime and build effective community partnerships. Unless Smith has different definitions for the words success, reduce and build, he has failed to deliver on his goals. In fact, evidence demonstrates he has betrayed those goals.

The past year alone has set a new watermark for incompetence, indifference and injustice from the leadership of the Kansas City Police Department. Among these betrayals, Smith has seen three of his officers indicted by grand juries for the brutalizing of Brianna Hill, a transgender Black woman, and the unlawful killing of Cameron Lamb. (In both cases, Smith obstructed justice by refusing to issue prosecutors probable cause statements and choosing to protect officers instead, despite the crimes against Hill being captured on video and there being an eyewitness to the Lamb killing).

Kansas City’s 2020 homicide rate to date is at an all-time high, while community trust in law enforcement is at an all-time low. And to erode community distrust further, Smith recently ordered his officers to deploy chemical weapons on unarmed protesters during the most significant civil rights demonstrations since the 1960s.

In a recent radio interview after overseeing the violation of protesters’ constitutional rights, Smith characterized policing as a “noble profession.” There are millions of people all over the world who disagree with that statement. But if it is true that honor is inherent in policing, the ink on Smith’s resignation papers should have been long dry by now because his utter indifference to the rule of law, his incestuous desire for a two-tiered system of justice that shields his officers from accountability for their crimes, and his severe impotence where strength is required. His inability to fulfill the core duties of his office falls far below any standard of virtue worthy of respect.

But as is the case with most white men with unfettered power, Smith has the privilege of romanticizing a past that never was while mustering the sheer audacity needed to look the rest of us in the face and falsify the dire present as cotton candy and rainbows. The facts prove a far different reality.

According to the 501(c)(3) nonprofit We The Protesters’ Police Use of Force Project, which tracks police use of force nationwide, the Kansas City Police Department is one of only two among the nation’s 100 largest departments that have refused to implement even one of the project’s eight recommendations to reduce police killings of civilians. Kansas City police have no policies restricting officers from shooting at moving vehicles or using chokeholds, nor any policies requiring officers to intervene and report excessive force by their peers, to exhaust all reasonable means before using deadly force, to issue verbal warnings before shooting civilians, or even to de-escalate situations before using force.

Kansas City police officers kill Black men at a rate 4.5 times higher than whites. We the Protesters’ Mapping Police Violence has compiled a list of 100 American police departments that kill Black men at higher rates than the U.S. murder rate. The Kansas City Police Department ranks 14.

While Smith allows his officers to behave as modern-day cowboys, his department homicide solve rate is a pathetic 33%, nearly 28% below the national average. Only 2 in 10 violent crimes and 1 in 10 of all crimes are ever submitted for prosecution. Kansas City is literally a criminal’s dream and a Black man’s nightmare.

Three months after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., author and activist James Baldwin summated the struggle people of color face as we fight white supremacy in all its forms, while educating a white world about history they wish to forget:

“All that can save you now is your confrontation with your own history … which is not your past, but your present.”

Chief Smith has proven himself incapable of facing this past, his actions demonstrate a willingness to repeat it. His predilection toward injustice and defiance in the face of reasonable police reform efforts is a betrayal of the public trust. He is unfit to remain the leader of our police department.

Gwendolyn Grant is president and CEO of Urban League of Greater Kansas City.

This story was originally published June 28, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "KC police are out of control. Chief Rick Smith must resign now, says Urban League CEO."