Here’s when a city-county task force first plans to meet to review Cedric Lofton’s death
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Death of Wichita teen at Sedgwick County facility
Cedric Lofton’s foster father called authorities in September 2021 seeking help because the 17-year-old was hallucinating and needed to go to a mental health facility. Instead, police took him to the Sedgwick County Juvenile Intake and Assessment Center, where he had to be resuscitated after he was held facedown for more than 30 minutes during an altercation. He died two days later.
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The first meeting of the joint city-county task force reviewing Cedric Lofton’s death will be held Thursday afternoon amid mounting scrutiny of the events that led to the 17-year-old being fatally restrained in a juvenile intake center.
Sedgwick County announced Wednesday afternoon that Thursday’s meeting will be held at 4 p.m. on the third floor of the Ronald Reagan Building, 271 W. 3rd St.
“This meeting will be open to the media with limited public seating due to COVID-19 precautions,” a county email announcing the meeting reads.
County spokesperson Akeam Ashford said the room can hold up to 30 members of the public who are not on the task force, including media.
The task force has not been officially authorized or formed by either the Wichita City Council or the county commission and can take no binding action on behalf of either governmental body.
Therefore, it’s an open question whether the task force is required to allow the public to sit in on their meetings under the Kansas Open Meetings Act.
“The task force, again, will determine transparency in the future,” Sedgwick County Manager Tom Stolz said Wednesday. “How they choose to work, whether they want Facebook streaming, continue to invite the public or do they want a bigger arena to work in. We look to them to determine future meetings on how this will go.”
Stolz said last week that the task force won’t have access to personnel records, subpoena power or the authority to interview the government employees involved in the Black teen’s death.
Organizations represented on the task force, including COMCARE, Wichita public schools, and racial justice activist organizations, were chosen by county and city staff.
Paul Cruz, a spokesperson for the Wichita Police Department, is listed as a task force support member. Police have so far refused to respond to questions about their interactions with Lofton before and after they transported him to a county-run juvenile intake center.
“We recognize residents’ interest in this tragic event, but it would be inappropriate at this time to respond to specific questions about the incident with partial information until the task force has had the opportunity to comprehensively and publicly review all of the facts, video and reports,” city of Wichita spokesperson Megan Lovely said in an email eight days after The Eagle sent Wichita police a detailed list of questions.
The task force was announced on Jan. 19, the same day District Attorney Marc Bennett said publicly that the county corrections employees who restrained Lofton were immune from prosecution under state law.
Stolz said the task force will have nearly complete control of how they run their meetings and conduct their business.
“I think the task force will determine what their — how they choose to do their business going forward,” he said. “Whether they elect a chairperson, whether they vote on issues to move things ahead — I think between the moderators and the task force, they will determine what that process will be.”
At Wednesday’s county commission meeting, Commission Chair David Dennis said neither local government body backing the task force should get too involved with its management.
“That’s the thing that I do not want the county or the city to do is get involved in how that they’re going to do this,” Dennis said. “I want to make sure that they are totally independent, and they can make the decisions on how to move forward.”
This story was originally published February 3, 2022 at 4:23 AM.
