A group of civil rights organizations on Friday again asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate constitutional violations, excessive force complaints and discrimination against Black people by the Kansas City Police Department.
The group, led by the Metro Organization for Racial and Economic Equity, or MORE2, includes the Urban League of Greater Kansas City, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Kansas City and other faith and social activist groups.
The same organizations were part of a group that filed a similar letter to the Justice Department in July 2021. Since then, the DOJ has launched an investigation of employment practices to determine whether racism is a factor in the hiring and promotions of Black KCPD officers.
During a press conference Friday morning in front of the Charles Evans Whittaker U.S. Courthouse in downtown Kansas City, the group said the Justice Department has not addressed “the deep concerns of citizens, namely the disparate treatment of Black Kansas Citians, from disproportionate stops to use of force.”
A letter released by the group Friday, addressed to the Justice Department, cited “systemic constitutional violations, an alarming amount of excessive force violations and the targeting of Black motorists to achieve ticket quotas.”
The group is asking the Justice Department to conduct a pattern and practice investigation of the Kansas City police force.
In the 22-page letter to Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, the social activist group laid out examples they said demonstrated a pattern of systemic constitutional violations.
The letter pointed to the millions of dollars the police department has paid out to settle civil lawsuits stemming from officers using excessive force against Black residents, the department’s failure to investigate missing Black residents and the slowness of Kansas City police to arrest a white man who shot Ralph Yarl, a Black teen who knocked on the man’s door by mistake.
“Black people in Kansas City live in terror of KCPD because of the lack of any accountability,” the letter said. “When an officer uses excessive force, the department claims the force was legal, the prosecutor rarely charges officers, and if an individual is lucky, they will get a settlement and KCPD will not make any policy changes.”
The letter notes that Kansas City, unlike most major U.S. cities, does not control its own police department. As a result, the police department is not accountable to city residents.
Four of the five members of the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners board, which controls the police department, are appointed by the Missouri governor. The fifth member is the mayor of Kansas City.
In their letter, the activists say the board is “essentially a rubber stamp for anything the department puts before it.”
“To this point, no amount of public complaints, lawsuits and judgments/settlements have been enough to spark a shred of change,” the letter said.
Leaders of the group said they hoped a federal investigation would result in the police department entering into a consent decree with the Justice Department. Such a move would compel the police department to address problems with the use of force and failure to properly train and discipline officers.
“The KCPD’s misconduct will continue to go unfettered and unchecked until an independent outside agency intervenes – and the federal government is the only independent entity that has the power to intervene,” according to the letter.
On June 16, the Justice Department released the results of a two-year investigation of Minneapolis police begun after the murder of George Floyd.
The investigation found that Minneapolis officers used excessive force, including “unjustified deadly force,” and violated the rights of people engaged in constitutionally protected speech.