When the Kansas City Police Department restarts its missing persons unit next week, the squad will begin taking new steps that advocates and critics have been calling for, a KCPD commander said Tuesday.
Those steps will include using a national missing persons database that is open to the public, maintaining its own public list of active cases and releasing reports on which cases are being closed or remain unsolved.
The decision to bring back the missing persons unit, which had been disbanded last year, and the new steps announced Tuesday come after the police department has faced months of criticism from Black leaders for its handling of missing persons cases. Community leaders have questioned whether the department takes reports of missing Black people seriously enough, while experts and advocates said the department was not following best practices in missing persons cases.
Police Chief Stacey Graves recently announced the squad was being reactivated in response to concerns raised by the community.
Maj. Leslie Foreman, commander of the violent crimes division, will oversee the squad, which will start April 16 with seven detectives and one sergeant supervisor and will be staffed throughout the day and evening. Detectives will work weekends on a rotating basis.
“We are going to do better but please be patient with us,” Foreman said at a news conference on Tuesday.
“I will say to hopefully bolster the confidence that now we’re going to have a squad that can focus just on that, and I really believe that will make a difference in our ability to follow through with things and have better communication.”
Foreman said the missing persons unit will use the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, or NamUs, which advocates had said should be used on a routine basis as a database open to the public. The department will also work with nonprofits such as Missouri Missing.
Missing persons are already added to the statewide law enforcement database, called MULES.
Foreman said the department will maintain a list of active missing person cases that is accessible to the public and will make public reports that track which cases are being closed or remain unsolved. That information will also track the demographics of missing persons. Those were all steps that community leaders or advocates had called for, especially those concerned that cases of missing Black or brown people were not being investigated properly.
The police department’s public tracking system for missing persons cases will be posted on the department’s website and accessible to the public upon request, much like the daily homicide analysis the police department already makes available.
Foreman said detectives will still be allowed to decide whether individual cases are worth pursuing, based on whether that person is in immediate danger or might harm themselves, which is a policy community leaders have criticized.
“Because there’s just so many nuances for each particular situation,” Foreman said. “We just have to weigh the totality of the circumstances.”
The detectives in the unit will investigate both missing adults and juveniles.
Since Sept. 1, the police department had taken 186 reports of missing adults. Nine of those cases remain unsolved. Roughly 509 juveniles have been reported missing with 53 of those cases remaining unsolved.
Criticism of KCPD missing persons investigations
Community activists have long complained that police are not responsive or seem indifferent to families trying to report a missing relative or loved one.
That includes cases in which police could have circulated a flier to the public about a missing teen, as they do in many cases, but chose not to.
Most recently, police did not alert the public about the disappearance of Oscar Cabral, 18, when his family reported him missing on March 18.
Five days later, his body was found near the heavily wooded trails inside Swope Park. His death is being investigated as a homicide.
Two weeks before, police found the body of 13-year-old Jayden Robker in a pond near his Northland home. In that case, police had delayed four days before alerting the public, later explaining that they had difficulty obtaining a current photo from the family.
The criticism had grown louder months earlier, when a 22-year-old Black woman escaped from the Excelsior Springs house of a man who she said kept her captive for weeks. The incident came just weeks after police had dismissed as rumors a report in the community that a serial killer was targeting Black women.
Some community leaders have applauded the department for restarting the missing persons squad. Others said they were going to be skeptical until they see positive results.
Foreman said the supervisor in charge of the squad will constantly review their strategies to determine what changes are needed.
“And I say that because I think we will do a better job to try to reach out and follow up with things like but I also say please bear with us,” she said. “And please don’t hesitate to reach out to us.”