More problems with the Wichita Police Department. Where does it end? | Opinion
You may have thought things couldn’t get any worse at the Wichita Police Department.
But one thing you can always say about our police is they know how to defy expectations.
Last week, former Police Chief Gordon Ramsey joined the rest of what had been his entire executive management staff in the precursor to a lawsuit, alleging that efforts to control officers behaving badly were torpedoed by higher-ups in City Hall, including City Manager Robert Layton and soon-to-be-retired Human Resources Director Chris Bezruki.
Much of the new filing is repetitive of the Sept. 19 demand letter sent to the city by lawyer James Thompson, representing deputy chiefs Jose Salcido and Chet Pinkston, along with former deputy chief Wanda Givens.
But there are some new puzzle pieces, including Ramsay saying that part of the reason he quit Wichita was “Bezruki’s interference in discipline, and the continued obstruction in Ramsay’s efforts to change department culture, subverting department leadership, stirring unrest and discord within the organization and fueling a toxic culture by Bezruki, Layton and the FOP (Fraternal Order of Police).”
There’s also a new allegation that a captain who was allegedly being shielded by City Hall in an ongoing criminal investigation leaked confidential information about criminal cases, although the letter did not elaborate.
In recent months, myself and other Eagle journalists have written a great deal about the racist, homophobic and borderline sociopathic texts exchanged among SWAT team officers; corners being cut that led to the in-custody death of 17-year-old CJ Lofton, and the reversal of discipline for a sergeant who “slapped the ass” of a female cop in restraints during a training exercise.
But here are a couple new issues you may have missed:
▪ Officer Andrew Barnett is scheduled for trial in about two weeks on charges that while on duty, he slapped a handcuffed suspect in a police car; and while off-duty, loudly and publicly threatened to forcibly sodomize a female rent-a-car clerk. Those, by the way, are newspaper words because the actual language that witnesses reported Barnett using was vastly more profane and completely unfit for print. Barnett apparently became enraged because the clerk refused to rent him a car using a relative’s vouchers that he didn’t have and the relative’s credit card, which he also didn’t have, according to an Airport Police affidavit.
▪ Ex-Wichita officer Thomas Wallace was sentenced to probation(!) for trading child pornography on the Internet and expressing his desire to hook up with pre-teen girls. I’m still trying to figure that one out, because I’ve been in a courtroom where guys who did the same got 10 years in federal prison. Wallace was on the force when he committed the crimes and a Google search shows officers in several other jurisdictions received significantly longer sentences — four to 10 years seems to be about the going rate for that.
The only positive thing I have to report at the moment is that Mayor Brandon Whipple and council member Mike Hoheisel are continuing to pursue police records and data that might shed some light on problems in the department and lead to some solutions.
A third council member, Jeff Blubaugh, backed out of the impromptu task force after Whipple became embroiled in an embarrassing confrontation with an officer at a community cleanup event, caught on police video.
I was deeply worried that police reform would die in this city while everybody had a good laugh at the mayor, with his pickup full of junk and his dollar-store stogie, calling the city manager to complain about the officer yelling at him (which he apparently did before turning on his body cam).
I’m heartened to see the mayor and Hoheisel persevering in their efforts, because this police department is messed up and some on the council seem indifferent, or even hostile, to cleaning it up.
This story was originally published November 27, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
