FBI closed public corruption case related to racist messages, Wichita police chief says

The FBI’s public corruption division investigated the Wichita Police Department last summer over inappropriate and racist text messages and closed the case on March 1, city officials said Tuesday.

The FBI’s Kansas City field office would not confirm or deny an investigation. “We are aware of the incident,” a spokesperson for the FBI said.

A Wichita deputy chief turned over evidence in the case to the FBI around July.

“He went straight over to the FBI, hand delivered it to them, had a meeting, and dropped it off there,” interim Chief Lem Moore told The Eagle on Tuesday. “It went from here to Kansas City to the department on corruption for the FBI and then it went to the DOJ in Washington DC.”

It’s the latest revelation about the Wichita Police Department’s handling of a case from April 2021, when Wichita police discovered inappropriate text messages by several law enforcement officers while searching a Sedgwick County sheriff’s deputy’s phone as part of an unrelated investigation.

The subject of the FBI investigation is unclear. The FBI’s public corruption program typically investigates violations of federal law by public officials at federal, state and local levels of government.

It does not appear the FBI agents were aware of whether former Wichita Police Chief Gordon Ramsay withheld information from Wichita City Manager Robert Layton. Layton and interim chief Lem Moore said they were not interviewed as part of the investigation.

Ramsay resigned March 1. He moved back to his home state of Minnesota, where he recently announced his candidacy for St. Louis County sheriff.

Wichita police also did not report to the Sedgwick County district attorney a racist text message sent by a Wichita SWAT officer until March 8, one hour after an Eagle reporter asked Moore about the text message and a week after the FBI closed its investigation. Such disclosure is required under federal Brady-Giglio case law; attorneys must disclose, among other things, any evidence that an officer involved in a case is biased toward a group of people..

The text message at issue is a sexually degrading photoshopped image of the murder of George Floyd. The photo had been altered to replace the white Minneapolis officer who killed Floyd with a naked Black man sitting on Floyd’s neck. At the time it was sent, Wichita SWAT team members were working George Floyd-inspired protests across the city.

On Tuesday, Ramsay contradicted Layton’s account of what the manager knew about the text messages and when he knew it, saying he told Layton about the racist text messages as early as April of last year and provided updates as they became available.

Layton said Ramsay kept him in the dark about the case for nearly a year and that he didn’t find out about it until Feb. 25, when he received an email from City Attorney Jennifer Magana informing him that the Citizen Review Board was “troubled by the level of discipline on one case, and has asked for a special meeting for the sole purpose of having another executive session to dig deeper into this case.”

Moore said the fact that a Wichita police officer handed the case over to the FBI is the one bright spot in the entire episode.

“They had the complete file,” Moore said. “They have everything from the county and ours — everything.”

The Eagle reported Monday that three sheriff’s deputies sent racist memes and no longer work for the county.

At the city, Sgt. Jamie Crouch — the Wichita police SWAT officer who sent the racist George Floyd photo — was disciplined under the department’s “bad judgment” policy and was not suspended.

Crouch left the SWAT team over the emotional stress surrounding the incident, Moore said Tuesday.

“Emotionally, yeah, it got to him,” Moore said. “Because of this.”

Moore, a Black man, said Crouch apologized to him personally. “He apologized up and down for bringing bad light on the department. He says that was not his intent.”

When Crouch sent the message, he was actively working Wichita’s George Floyd protests, including a rally that turned chaotic at 21st and Arkansas in June 2020. Wichita police blocked traffic. Protesters flooded the intersection, turning donuts in their cars and lighting off fireworks. Several looters broke into the QuikTrip.

Meanwhile, the SWAT team declared the protest an unlawful assembly and fired tear gas, flash grenades and rubber bullets at peaceful protesters on the other side of Arkansas before descending on the convenience store. A 28-year-old Black man was arrested for firing at Wichita SWAT members. Police say he told a co-worker that the shooting was in retaliation for police shooting his sister with a rubber bullet while she held a baby.

Crouch was part of the SWAT team that came under fire, Moore said.

“He explained to me about getting shot at at 21st and Arkansas that night, and his SWAT team were very depressed, and they were out there trying to do a good thing,” Moore said.

“He said that the next night that they were all sitting together waiting on standby. It was hot. And it was a hot summer. And his African American friends sent this and said, ‘Hey, this is what you’re fighting for’ (referring to the racist George Floyd meme).

“He said his African American friend laughed about it, and he was like, you know, I’ll send this to the guys. And he ended up sending it to the guys, thinking he could lighten the mood.”

This story was originally published March 23, 2022 at 4:53 AM.