New study ranks Kansas City Police Department one of the worst in the country

Toriano Porter
·4 min read

The Kansas City Police Department says the data that ranked it as one of the worst-performing in the nation is incomplete. But a study known as the Police Scorecard was based on publicly available information submitted by law enforcement agencies.

And the results were telling.

Kansas City police used more deadly force than 98% of similar-sized departments nationwide, killing 36 people between 2012 and 2020, the report found. A Black person was 4.3 times more likely to be killed by police than a white person in Kansas City from 2013-20, the study concluded.

Only 3% of 1,059 civilian complaints against officers were sustained over three years beginning in 2016, an abhorrent rate in a city trying to rebuild trust between police and the community. Not one excessive force allegation or claim of discrimination by Kansas City police officers was substantiated during the time period.

Another key finding that should worry every citizen: KCPD solved fewer homicides than 73% of departments nationwide. The city recorded 854 homicides from 2013 to 2019, but 399 remained unsolved, the report found.

The low clearance rate is concerning for a city that set a record for violence last year. In 2020, 182 people were killed, the deadliest year in the city’s history. Through this week, 76 homicides were reported this year.

The low rating should not come as a surprise. Kansas City police officers are rarely held accountable. And it doesn’t take a nationwide police scorecard to remind us the department protects its officers at all costs.

Kansas Citians were overpoliced and yet unsafe, the study found. More than half of 78,917 arrests made from 2013 to 2019 were for low-level offenses and the department employed more officers per population than 81% of agencies nationwide.

How did department officials respond to the findings that our citizens are overpoliced and under-protected? By questioning the validity of the study, of course.

“If you read this site and the data in the way it’s presented, one can easily find reasons to believe the things you have decided are true,” a statement from the Kansas City Police Department said. “The point, however, is not to debate the validity or accuracy of the data presented on this site. That is for your readers to decide for themselves.”

If department officials really were open to feedback from the community about how to perform better, a good start would be a change in leadership. Kansas City has recorded the highest level of homicides three out of the last four years under Chief Rick Smith’s watch. Whatever crime-fighting strategies and anti-violence initiatives the department is using aren’t working.

At least five Kansas City Police Officers face criminal charges. All remain on the force, collecting a taxpayer-funded salary despite serious allegations of excessive force, or in one case, the killing of a man in his own backyard. All of the victims in those cases were Black, leading to a groundswell of criticism from local activists on police accountability.

Several civil rights organizations and community groups want Smith gone. Could anyone blame them?

Low-level offenses distract from serious crimes

The Police Scorecard is a nationwide public evaluation of policing in the United States. The study calculated police violence, accountability, racial bias and other policing outcomes for more than 16,000 law enforcement agencies around the country, according to its website.

The score was based on publicly available data on policing from federal, state, and local agencies, the study’s founder, Samuel Sinyangwe, said.

The report, the first of its kind, based its ranking on the department’s size, its arrests for low-level offenses, the number of police misconduct cases and the homicide clearance rate, among other measurables.

The Kansas City Police Department flat-out failed, ranking 495 out of 500 of the largest law enforcement agencies in the country. St. Louis Police ranked 494, suggesting policing in Missouri needs to be reimagined, Sinyangwe said.

Police departments in New York City and Milwaukee have been able to address violent crime by focusing less on low-level offenses, he said. Kansas City should take a similar approach. Shielding problem officers from public scrutiny doesn’t help.

Cities with higher scores spend less on policing, use less force, are more likely to hold officers accountable and make fewer arrests for low-level offenses, the study concluded. Kansas City police officials could hardly do worse.

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