Citizen’s board continues talk about inappropriate messages sent by Wichita police

The Wichita Citizen’s Review Board will hold a special meeting March 31 to continue discussing the police department’s handling of racist and inappropriate messages sent by officers.

It set that special meeting after not finishing its conversation on the topic Thursday.

The CRB, which was created to advance oversight and transparency in the police department, has now discussed the messages over three meetings, including calling its first-ever special meeting to hear about it after board members raised concerns about the lack of details and punishment.

“There is a lot of material involved and it’s an important issue,” CRB chair Jay Fowler said. “We have been going through the material line by line.”

The 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, the harshest penalty given by the city. 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 Eagle reported on the message and the police department’s handling of them Monday. Tuesday, City Manager Robert Layton called for a third-party investigation to look into the department’s handling of the case.

Layton said he didn’t know about the messages until Feb. 25 — the day after the CRB first heard about it — and blamed former chief Gordon Ramsay for not telling him. Ramsay told The Eagle that Layton knew last year.

Mayor Brandon Whipple said that if Layton is found to be lying, he would likely be fired.

After Thursday’s meeting, Fowler said he expects the board to complete its review of the case March 31 and start to finalize recommendations. The board likely won’t have anything to say about the case until its April 28 meeting.

Currently, the board only can say that it reviewed a case and, at most, will consider making a policy change recommendation. The Wichita City Council will meet April 5 and will consider changes to the CRB ordinance that would allow the group to make a public statement.

Fowler said the CRB wants to make a statement about the case.

With the proposed changes, “you’ll have a substantive understanding of what we saw and what we think,” Fowler previously told The Eagle.

Whipple said the council has an increased desire to make the CRB more robust following outcry from elected officials and community members after The Eagle’s report. Changes had been proposed before this week, but Whipple said the council could go further than those proposals.

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

Tracey Mason Sr. raised concerns about the messages and the department’s handling of them during the public comment time of the CRB meeting.

”When is this thin blue line going to come down? When is this thin blue line going to be eradicated. When?” he said.

Mason and a couple of others who spoke also talked about the board’s lack of power.

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

Walt Chappell told Layton to “give them some teeth” during the meeting. Twila Puritty told the board it needs subpoena power.

Fowler said he thinks the board has teeth and the department’s handling of the messages only came to light because the CRB pulled that case to review.

Fowler also said he didn’t think the department withheld information from the board when it first heard about the case Feb. 24. The Eagle’s investigation found that key details were left out of information given the board at that time. Fowler said it was understood then that board members would get more details in later meetings.

“I think it’s too much to say that things were concealed,” Fowler said. “They’ve been forthcoming.”

This story was originally published March 24, 2022 at 8:16 PM.