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Contrary to the police union president’s claim that Kansas City is “defunding the police,” the city is poised to hire new officers and raise salaries.
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Kansas City Police Chief Rick Smith continues to be surrounded by controversy — between conflicting reports about his retirement and increased calls for him to be fired immediately after audio of him calling the victim of a police shooting "the bad guy" surfaced. Plus, what we know about the omicron COVID-19 variant following its discovery in Missouri.
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Kansas City Council members failed to reach a consensus Thursday on whether to jumpstart the process to replace Police Chief Rick Smith, who will retire next year but whose current leadership continues to be fraught with controversy.
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Police commissioners were mum Wednesday after a video surfaced in which Smith could be heard saying the "bad guy's dead" following the fatal shooting of Cameron Lamb, a Black man killed by KCPD Detective Erik DeValkenaere, who was convicted last month of involuntary manslaughter and armed criminal action.
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According to a memo obtained by KCUR, Smith would step down as police chief April 22, 2022 and be paid his normal salary through August. On Tuesday, Smith told media outlets and city officials he had no plans to leave the department.
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The removal of the embattled police chief has been a rallying cry for activists and civil rights groups. It comes just days after a Kansas City Police detective was convicted of manslaughter in the death of a Black man.
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In the spring of 2020, Black Lives Matter protesters called for the Kansas City Police Department to be released from state oversight. Civil rights groups are still talking about that, but there's little momentum.
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Dawn Cramer, who was appointed to the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners by Missouri Gov. Mike Parson on Aug. 26, falsely claimed that she had “completed a high-level PhD program” at a university.
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Five years after the Kansas City Auditor’s Office released recommendations to improve KCPD’s take-home vehicle policies, there has still been no response from the department.
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Mayor Quinton Lucas’s plan to reallocate part of the police department budget has been criticized as “defunding the police.” In fact, the plan earmarks just one-fifth of the budget for different priorities and increases the budget by $3 million.
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The war of words around Mayor Quinton Lucas’s plan to reallocate a portion of the police budget is now in the courts, with the city responding to the Board of Police Commissioners lawsuit. Both sides say the other is violating state law.
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A group of African American pastors is distancing themselves from departmental leadership over video they say conflicts with police accounts of the killing of Malcolm Johnson.