Kansas City Cop Blows Whistle On Department's Jim Crow Policing

Shocked! We are shocked!

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez once said a world without police would look like white suburbs. She was roundly criticized for this, because we all know a world without police is like Mad Max where everyone drives large vehicles with heads on pikes.

It's also been argued that people in minority neighborhoods desperately want cops, but what they actually want are cops who will protect them from criminals, not just beat the crap out of them and otherwise treat their communities like open-air prisons.

Edward Williams, a 44-year-old white Kansas City, Missouri, Police officer with 21 years experience on the force, blew the whistle recently on a systemic and deliberate pattern of racist policing. William alleges in a discrimination lawsuit filed against the department that then-Chief of Police Richard Smith held a mandatory meeting in 2018 where he complained about a drop in traffic tickets. The command staff acknowledged that ticket quotas are illegal, but they still set a requirement of 1,820 tickets annually for each officer.

The suit alleges “…all KCPD cared about was the money generated by the tickets issued,” and claims the practice continues today.

Williams's suit further claims that officers were told to meet their ticket quotas in minority neighborhoods because it would be “easier to write multiple citations on every stop." Noting that minority residents might feel cranky about all the over-policing, the command staff allegedly advised to “approach every car with the mindset to be ready to kill everybody in the car."

This is repulsive but not surprising, especially if you're Black or meaningfully engage with Black people, and it gets worse: Officers were further instructed to only respond to calls in north and south Kansas City's white neighborhoods. Command staff claimed the white residents there "are actually paying for the police," and cops shouldn't bother even constructively policing in minority areas north of Bannister Road, west of Interstate 435, and south of the Missouri River. The Black residents who live there apparently "do not vote the same way as the people out south, east, and north," the suit alleges. Yes, voting "wrong" is a crime and Black folks are repeat offenders.

You know, if cops are shaking down minorities exclusively to meet their ticket quotas, it's probably only fair to solve at least a couple burglaries for them.

Current KCPD Chief Stacey Graves, responding to Williams's claims, insisted, “We do not direct enforcement activities based on demographics. We do direct traffic enforcement in high crash locations as well as citizen traffic complaint locations.” She pinky-sweared that her department is totally devoted to fair policing and that she would remind the traffic division to “operate and enforce laws appropriately.”

Former Chief Smith was forced into retirement in 2022 after he was accused of soft pedaling excessive force cases involving minorities and unleashing a militarized police response to Black Lives Matter protesters. He was later — no joke — hired as a consultant at another Missouri police department.

Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker wrote a public letter in 2021 stating that the Kansas City Police Department had lost the community's trust and probably should stop already with all the excessive force.

Last December, the Department of Justice announced an investigation into the KCPD's alleged racist hiring practices. This occurred not long after T  he Kansas City Star  published a series of stories revealing that there was "no thin line for Black officers." According to the Star , "the number of Black officers was lower than it had been decades ago, that Black officers were disproportionately disciplined by KCPD, and at least 18 officers had left because of racist treatment over a 15-year period."

Williams accuses the command staff of making racist statements in his presence, assuming he'd be OK with it because he was white. Man, it looks like we've found ourselves yet another racist police force that's obviously an "outlier."

It seems like the Kansas City cops could tell the difference between pleasant suburban peacekeeping and the brutal occupation of minority communities. Meanwhile, Black people are still waiting for our Andy Taylor-style policing. We certainly pay enough in traffic tickets for it.

[ KCUR ]

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