The Independence Police internal affairs captain has filed a stinging lawsuit against the city, alleging age discrimination, a hostile work environment and illegal retaliation.
Capt. Billy Pope, 55, a 17-year veteran of the force and commander of the Internal Affairs and Professional Standards Unit since February 2024, singled out two deputy chiefs, Michelle Sumstad and Jason Petersen, along with former Chief Adam Dustman.
Sumstad and Petersen have driven city-issued cars after drinking, then were withheld from accountability thanks to a chummy relationship with Independence City Attorney Holly Dodge, the lawsuit, filed in Jackson County court, alleges.
Dodge made headlines in 2023 when, as attorney for the Kansas City Police Department, she was accused of unethical behavior and denying public records requests. She quickly resigned.
As Pope investigated the breaches of conduct, Dodge helped Sumstad and Petersen navigate around him, the lawsuit says. Instead, “Petersen and Sumstad spent considerable hours in Dodge's makeshift office at IPD laughing and socializing with her,” the lawsuit says.
A city spokesman did not return an email seeking comment.
While investigating the drunken driving incidents, Pope learned that Sumstad had visited a bar where she and Petersen had been drinking and ordered that all video footage from the bar be deleted, which bar management refused to do, and warned them that Pope would be visiting as part of his investigation, according to the lawsuit.
Pope also discovered that Sumstad called another law enforcement agency to get a ticket fixed for a friend, the lawsuit says.
Petersen helped Dustman duck an internal affairs investigation after a September 2024 drunken driving incident, the lawsuit claims, when Dustman crashed his city patrol vehicle into two mailboxes.
Pope reported his findings to interim police Chief Douglas Brinkley in December 2025, but Petersen and Sumstad have not been investigated or disciplined, the lawsuit says.
“Despite Petersen's and Sumstad's continued and documented unethical conduct, neither has faced meaningful consequences for their actions,” the lawsuit says.
The age discrimination began around 2021, when Dustman was made chief over the more experienced and older Deputy Chief Ken Jarnagin, the lawsuit says. Dustman was 38; Jarnagin, who filed a lawsuit in 2024, was 55.
Dustman resigned in September 2025 and Brinkley was named interim chief.
Dustman was assisted in his favoring of younger employees by Petersen and Sumstad, the lawsuit says, with Dustman showing a personal hostility against older officers, including wishing two older officers would “get hit by a (expletive deleted) bus crossing the street.”
“Since Dustman's selection as chief of police, (the city) has systematically pushed out older police officers and civilian employees, including by terminating them, forcing them to retire early, and/or deliberately creating conditions intolerable enough to force their resignation,” the lawsuit says.
