Inappropriate Wichita police messages could lead to more power for citizen review board

The Wichita Police Department’s handling of racist and inappropriate messages sent by officers has added to concerns about transparency within the department. The incident could lead to a more robust Citizen’s Review Board, Mayor Brandon Whipple said.

“There is a desire for more transparency,” he said. “There is a desire for ensuring that stuff like this doesn’t fall through the cracks.”

The Citizen’s Review Board was created to advance oversight and transparency in the police department. But it is limited by ordinance to making policy recommendations after it reviews closed cases.

The CRB has had two meetings about the messages, with a third planned for Thursday. When members first discussed the messages last month, the police department had not given them key details about what Wichita officers said.

Board members raised concerns about the lack of details and level of punishment and called a first special meeting for March 10.

“I’m disappointed that that was the perception or that was the reality,” City Manager Robert Layton said Tuesday after The Eagle reported details of the case on Monday. “We’ll meet as much as they want until they feel that they have the full picture. I’m fairly confident they’re getting a lot more information that they need right now.”

The inappropriate messages surfaced in April 2021, when Wichita police discovered text messages by several law enforcement officers while searching a Sedgwick County sheriff’s deputy’s phone as part of an unrelated investigation.

Eleven Wichita officers were investigated in the case. An officer who insulted leadership, including calling former chief Gordon Ramsay a tool, was suspended. That was the harshest penalty given. A white officer who sent a sexually degrading photo depicting the death of George Floyd was disciplined under a bad judgment policy but not suspended.

By contrast, three Sedgwick County sheriff’s deputies who sent racist memes have left the department. One resigned and two retired under threat of being fired.

The police department’s handling of the case — not giving the CRB all the information, meting out lesser punishment and not turning over to the district attorney a racist photo that could affect criminal cases — has raised questions about transparency.

The CRB, which started meeting in 2018, lacks the ability to enforce or overturn punishment, subpoena witnesses and speak publicly about cases.

The Wichita City Council is slated to talk about proposed changes — including allowing the board to make public statements about cases — in April.

The council was slated to talk about those changes before the Eagle first reported the messages. The proposed changes follow a national push for more police transparency after the 2020 death of Floyd, a Black man murdered by a white officer.

Whipple said the latest incident could open the door to more changes than had been proposed.

“Nothing should be ruled out at this point,” he said.

How counties handle it

The sheriff’s office has a citizen advisory board that offers community feedback on issues within the department ranging from staffing to problems at the jail.

It has a separate board that reviews cases like the CRB. But it has the power to subpoena witnesses and overrule department discipline decisions.

State law requires sheriff’s offices to have a Civil Service Board, a group of laypeople appointed by commissioners.

“They’ve done it before on me where they overruled something that I believed was a firing offense,” Sedgwick County Sheriff Jeff Easter said.

The board sees all discipline cases but weighs in only when an officer appeals the ruling, which can happen if they are suspended for a day or more. (Wichita police can appeal any punishment.)

Easter said he thinks with the right people on the CSB, like no former Sedgwick County law enforcement personnel, then it’s a good thing.

“It keeps us with checks and balances,” he said.

The sheriff’s office doesn’t have a union, while most of WPD’s staff is backed by the Fraternal Order of Police. The union contract with the city spells out how the FOP can be involved throughout the disciplinary process.

Easter, who used to work for the Wichita Police Department, would not comment about how a union would affect grievances.

David Inkelaar, president of the FOP Lodge 5 that represents Wichita police, did not respond to questions about whether a similar board would be a good idea for the Wichita Police Department.

Missing details

When the city’s review board first heard about the messages in February, key details were left out.

The CRB packet said a sheriff’s deputy sent a message to three Wichita officers — who all have been involved in shootings — saying they were “ultimate de-escalators” who “permanently deescalated people who needed permanent de-escalation.” It did not note that the Wichita officers liked, loved and commented back. The officers were given coaching and mentoring as a punishment.

“It’s not fair for us to have half the picture,” CRB board member Pastor ODell Harris Jr. said after an Eagle reporter told him about the missing information. “We deserve transparency. Our city deserves transparency. Our citizens deserve transparency.”

At the March 10 meeting, board members heard more information after raising concerns.

CRB members never mentioned before that they were concerned details were left out, Layton said, but they can only know what police tell them.

“I can’t draw a conclusion from this one incident,” he said. “If we don’t provide that as a staff, that is a mistake and it needs to be corrected.”

He also thinks the board has the power to hold the department accountable.

“They have to have teeth and I think they do,” Layton said.

Proposed changes

The most substantial among the proposed changes would allow the board to make a public statement about the case. Board members have indicated they want to make a public comment about this case.

It would be up to the City Council to define what that means, but it would be a step up from the brief synopsis the public is currently offered in the board’s agenda. Currently, the board only says that it reviewed a case and, at most, will consider making a policy change recommendation.

With the changes, “you’ll have a substantive understanding of what we saw and what we think,” board chairperson Jay Fowler said in a phone interview.

Among other proposed changes:

▪ Allowing citizens with complaints to speak with the board and notifying them of the board’s review of their case

▪ Receiving discipline history of officers involved in cases. The board is given that information if they ask, but the changes would put that in writing

▪ Changing term lengths and adding language to remove members who miss too many meetings

▪ Allowing the mayor and city council to appoint most of the board members, instead of only the city manager

Inkelaar, the FOP president, did respond to a text asking if the union had a problem with board members having discipline records, but didn’t answer questions about the public reports.

“An employee’s past discipline does not have any connection to whether or not misconduct occurred during an incident under review,” he said. “Having past discipline records on hand at the time of review only biases the reviewer.”

CRB members have also asked to allow records involving officers who appeal their punishment to be available to the public.

Fowler, who has been on the board since it first met in 2018, said that change would allow public scrutiny of punishment done by the department.

But that change isn’t allowed under the three-year union contract the City Council approved in December.

Community activists asked for names of any officer accused of wrongdoing to be made public, but the contract the council approved didn’t do that.

This story was originally published March 24, 2022 at 4:55 AM.