Local control of the Kansas City Police Department wouldn’t change a thing

Two years ago, I wrote in this space about local control of police, concluding, “No Missourian has more power over policing in Kansas City than the mayor, should he wish to use it.” While some are calling for greater local political control of police amid recent debates about police practices, the high risks and low returns remain.

The Kansas City Police Department is governed by a five-member board. Four are nominated by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate. All must be Kansas City residents. The other position is held by the mayor of Kansas City. Our police are already locally controlled.

In a recent column in The Star, Dave Helling wrote: “Kansas City’s police force remains firmly in the grip of the governor’s office, as it has for more than 80 years.” All the commissioners I spoke with — appointed at different times by governors of both political parties — made the point that they rarely, if ever, heard from the governor once confirmed. They never received direction from the governor as a condition of their nomination. I could find no evidence to support Helling’s assertion.

What the Kansas City system does — and has done by design since its 1939 adoption following the corruption of the Pendergast era — is insulate the day-to-day operation of the police force from the political intrigue of City Hall. This is valuable. Jackson County Sheriff Darryl Forté, himself a former Kansas City police chief, argued recently that there are risks to changing the system we have now: “If you’ve got a chief that doesn’t have a backbone, you are going to have some problems, because everybody’s going to yank him or her around,” he told the city’s newly-formed public safety study group.

Furthermore, a politicized police leadership would result in more political organization from the department’s union. Is that good for anyone?

While the risks of local control are real, the benefits seem less so. As Helling mentioned, St. Louis assumed control of its police in 2013 after the success of a statewide ballot initiative. Yet proponents of local political control of police don’t highlight specific improvements to policing in St. Louis as a result.

There simply aren’t any. To the man on the street, nothing has changed. St. Louis’ homicide rate certainly hasn’t abated. This shouldn’t be a surprise. Plenty of police departments across the country that are controlled by their mayors are a mess — including several under federal consent decrees.

Kansas City’s mayor and city manager still have influence over policing, should they wish to use it. The problem is that past leaders hid behind the local control issue, claiming that they have no say. But mayors haven’t lacked power; they’ve lacked courage.

For example, after recent public protests, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas called an emergency meeting of the board of police commissioners and urged the adoption of “police oversight policies to help build community trust and ensure transparency.” Among them are turning over investigations of officer-involved shootings to outside agencies, delivering weekly updates to the City Council and increasing the department’s cooperation with county prosecutors. The board followed his leadership and adopted these policies. So-called local control was not necessary for the mayor to get these positive results.

Lucas has demonstrated that mayors can steer policing policy without turning public safety professionals into political sycophants or creating one more politically powerful union. Proponents of change must make the case that benefits not seen elsewhere outweigh the risks seen everywhere. So far, they have not.

Local political control of police doesn’t guarantee better outcomes. It merely increases the likelihood of bad ones.

This story was originally published July 1, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Local control of the Kansas City Police Department wouldn’t change a thing."