police

Republican U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, of Missouri, introduced the Stop Flock Abuse Act, calling the automated license plate reader system “a nightmare for individual liberties.”

Hawley said his main worries were personal privacy and that people have the right to be treated as innocent until proven guilty.

A recent KCUR analysis reveals that data gathered by Kansas City-area Flock cameras has been searched hundreds of thousands of times by out-of-state police departments. Across the city, residents are concerned by how that data is being used.

A KCUR analysis of data collected from hundreds of automated license plate readers in the Kansas City area shows out-of-state police departments account for thousands of searches. Across the metro, people are demanding a stop to the unfettered collection of their information.

Lee’s Summit police now require every police agency in the country to agree to a set of rules before allowing access to Flock data. The department says they may be ‘pioneers’ in this kind of data protection.

Charles Adair was in the midst of a mental health emergency when he turned himself into law enforcement for old traffic warrants. If sheriff’s deputies at the Wyandotte County, Kansas, jail had followed protocol for a mental health crisis, it might have prevented Adair’s death — which was ruled a homicide due to being restrained with a knee on his back.

At the end of July, Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves announced that she is retiring from her role leading the department after four years. She joined KCUR’s Up To Date to look back at her time as the first woman to serve permanently as KCPD chief, and to discuss the department’s future.

St. Charles County Police say they've ceased using Flock Safety cameras after a civilian employee allegedly abused the system for personal reasons. Pulaski County is also ditching the cameras.

Workers were searching for a home equipped for 17-year-old Korbin Papadopoulos' medical needs. Instead, he was sent to a foster home whose caregiver said he wasn't trained or licensed to manage diabetes.

With Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves retiring after four years, leaders around the metro say the next top cop will need to build on progress in addressing violent crime and repairing police-community relationships. They also want the Board of Police Commissioners to open the hiring process more to the public.

A new lawsuit argues that Wichita's “dragnet surveillance program” of AI-powered license plate readers violates the Kansas Constitution. The city began deploying Flock Safety cameras in 2020, analyzing vehicle details and logging them into a nationwide database without a warrant.

Graves has served the department for more than 29 years, and is the first woman named permanent police chief of the KCPD.