Three residents filed suit against the state of Missouri this week to end state control of the Kansas City Police Department.
Under the current system of state control, a governor-appointed police board has complete authority to make decisions about KCPD policy, the hiring of the police chief and how the budget is spent.
Spencer Webster, the attorney representing the plaintiffs, argues in the lawsuit filed Monday that the system violates both the U.S. Constitution and the Civil Rights Act because it was intended to discriminate against Black Missourians and preserve the institution of slavery.
The three plaintiffs include two Kansas City voters and Narene Crosby, the mother of Ryan Stokes, a 24-year-old man who was shot and killed by a KCPD officer in 2013.
Gov. Mike Parson, Attorney General Andrew Bailey, Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft and the five members of the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners are listed as defendants.
That includes Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas, the only elected official on the police board. He has been a sharp critic of the system of state control since he was first elected in 2019.
“Any effort that ends the injustice of State of Missouri-controlled policing in Kansas City is a good thing,” he told The Beacon in a statement. “The current system has long discriminated against Black Kansas Citians and has never made our community safer.”
The attorney general’s office and the Kansas City police board did not respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit’s complaint can be read in its entirety here.
Missouri established the system of state control in 1861 to aid the Confederacy
The lawsuit cites a story published by The Beacon in December 2022 about the connection between state control of KCPD and Confederate machinations leading up to the Civil War.
At the time, then-Missouri Gov. Claiborne Fox Jackson took control of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department and appointed four secessionists to the police board. His intention was to seize an arsenal of nearly 40,000 weapons during the Camp Jackson Affair. This was the largest arsenal among the slave states.
“The police bill was in reality a war measure, adopted to enable our people to control St. Louis,” white supremacist and St. Louis police commissioner Basil Duke later said, as reported in “Lion of the Valley” by James Neal Primm. “I knew the meaning of the measure … and tried to carry it into action.”
Duke would later become a Confederate general. The failure of the Camp Jackson Affair is credited as one of the primary reasons Missouri never seceded during the Civil War.
Although the Kansas City police board would not be created until the late 1800s, after the Civil War ended, its structure is outlined in Chapter 84 of Missouri statute, which dates back to the 1861 St. Louis police bill.
“The legislature did not pass the police bill for any legitimate purpose,” the lawsuit reads. “(T)he legislature passed the police bill to commit treason, to keep Black people captive, and to deny Black people basic human rights and dignities.”
What happens next for the KCPD lawsuit?
Now, the question will go to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri.
The lawsuit points to the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, as well as the Civil Rights Act.
Lawyers will have to prove that the state-controlled police department was established with the intent to discriminate against Black Missourians. The lawsuit requests a jury trial.
The defendants have not yet submitted a response.
A separate lawsuit filed in 2021 by Gwendolyn Grant, the president and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Kansas City, argues that state control amounts to “taxation without representation” and violates the Hancock Amendment of the Missouri Constitution.
Unlike the most recent lawsuit, filed on March 11, Grant’s 2021 lawsuit will be heard in Jackson County Circuit Court.
A cross claim filed by the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners in November 2022 could have the potential to bankrupt Kansas City in an attempt to bolster the police budget.
Further reading about KCPD
The Beacon took a deep dive into the 150-year history of state control in Missouri. This story was cited for historical background in the March 11 lawsuit.
To read about how the Kansas City Police Department is funded, click here. The Beacon uncovered $5.6 million in budget disparities in a department fund that’s used to pay for legal settlements.
Here’s how the Kansas City police board makes decisions under Chapter 84 of Missouri statute.
To learn about the five police commissioners who sit on the board, click here.
Kansas City is required to direct a quarter of its general revenue to the police department, but it’s a secret how the city calculates this number. The police board is suing Kansas City to find out how it works.
