Fact check: Does Wichita mayor support police, and what about that neighborhood cleanup?
The Wichita Fraternal Order of Police is flexing its political clout — with the backing of state and national police union leaders — against Wichita Mayor Brandon Whipple.
The FOP endorsed Whipple, a Democrat, in 2019. This year, it has endorsed challenger Lily Wu, a Libertarian.
On Monday, two days before advance ballots start hitting mailboxes across the city, the FOP called a news conference to renew criticism of Whipple for his behavior at a neighborhood cleanup event last fall, for which he was found to have violated the City Council’s ethics policy and ordered to undergo ethics training, which he completed in July.
Last year, the local, state and national FOPs called on Whipple to resign after he clashed with a police officer at the cleanup event. Whipple apologized publicly. But FOP leaders said he should apologize to the officer personally.
Nearly the entire Republican delegation of county and state elected officials attended the police union press conference, including House Speaker Dan Hawkins and three of four GOP members of the Sedgwick County Commission: David Dennis, Jim Howell and Ryan Baty.
The FOP conference followed a text message campaign over the weekend funded by the Wichita Regional Chamber PAC that directs potential voters to body-camera video of Whipple’s heated exchange with Officer Atlee Vogt.
Whipple said the FOP is retaliating against him for demanding accountability for officers involved in a racist text message scandal. Inkelaar said he can’t comment on the ongoing disciplinary decisions being considered involving those officers.
Below, The Eagle unpacks claims made by the FOP and Whipple and provides background on the conflict.
‘Pro-police’ claim
A press conference called by Wichita’s Fraternal Order of Police was riddled with false and misleading information, along with claims that require additional context, a Wichita Eagle fact-check found.
The stated basis for the news conference was false. The Fraternal Order of Police said it called the news conference to debunk a false claim in a mailer sent out by the Kansas Democratic Party in support of Wichita Mayor Brandon Whipple last week.
But the mailer did not make the underlying claim FOP representatives said it did.
FOP claim: “We’re here today to shed some light on a recent double-sided mailer that was sent out to the citizens of Wichita,” Kansas FOP President and Wichita Property Crimes Bureau Capt. Casey Slaughter said at Monday’s news conference. “It’s misleading. It falsely claims that law enforcement supports Mayor Brandon Whipple and that he in turn supports us. Neither is true, and I want to make it very clear we do not support Brandon Whipple, despite what he might tell you.”
Why it’s false: The mailer does not claim law enforcement or its union leaders support Whipple.
It features a photograph of Whipple speaking with officers in the crowd, which he has featured prominently in campaign materials since he launched his campaign, and says Whipple “kept his promise to provide our police with the tools and resources they need to focus on solving crime.” It also says, “Mayor Whipple’s strategy is working for Wichita” and directs voters to his campaign website. On the other side of the mailer, it claims “Whipple’s crime fighting strategies are working for Wichita” and points to his votes to increase Wichita police funding, to add mental health first-responders to the department and his support of police-authored legislation aimed at reducing catalytic converter theft.
FOP President David Inkelaar said he believes the photograph used in the mailer indicates law enforcement support for Whipple, which he said Whipple does not have. In an interview with The Eagle, he said that Wichita police have not adopted any “crime fighting strategies” put forth by Whipple.
In a statement, Whipple said he has always been and continues to be pro-police.
Neighborhood cleanup rules
The Wichita Fraternal Police also misrepresented the rules for dropping off trash at the neighborhood cleanup event.
Inkelaar offered a PowerPoint slide showing rules for neighborhood cleanups that were not in effect at the time that Whipple took trash from his rental property in the district to the dump. He also said Whipple was not allowed to use the cleanup to dump trash from his rental property, which is false.
FOP claim: “By the standards set forth for the cleanup, he’s out of the pay bracket. He makes over $100,000. He is not allowed to dump his stuff, regardless if it was from his own home or if it was from a rental property. But yet he chose to violate those rules. He chose to come to this to dump his stuff from a rental property. Not to mention, he doesn’t live in District 4. He’s outside the district where the cleanup occurred.”
Why it’s false: The standards set for the cleanup were not in effect until after Whipple’s incident at the Southwest Neighborhood cleanup event, so he did not violate them. At the time, the cleanup had no income requirements and no prohibition on landlords using the service.
The Ethics Advisory Board investigated this question earlier this year and found Whipple’s use of the neighborhood cleanup did not violate any city rules.
“The EAB concludes that information provided to residents for this specific September 24, 2022 event (the flyer) did not clearly prohibit anyone from attending,” the board’s investigation found. “The EAB finds that the Mayor’s actions did not rise to the level of using city resources for activities outside of official duties, or at least is not the type of behavior contemplated (in the ethics policy).”
Promises kept?
FOP President Inkelaar, a Wichita police sergeant, said the Kansas Democratic Party’s mailer is misleading because Whipple has not kept all of his promises to the police union.
Both Inkelaar’s statement and the Democratic mailer require further context.
KDP mailer claim: “Whipple kept his promise to provide our police with the tools and resources they need to focus on solving crime.”
FOP counter-claim: “He has been untruthful with us, has promised us the world,” Inkelaar said. “When he first came to the union, he told us that he would get us 200 more officers. That didn’t happen. We had to walk him back down because we knew 200 was a large number that he couldn’t produce. And then he promised 100 officers. Under his tenure as mayor, he has lowered morale. He has been the driving force for toxic relationship with the men and women of the Wichita Police Department, and we are now 110 commissioned personnel down in the Wichita Police Department.”
Context: During Whipple’s term, the city has authorized hiring an additional 58 commissioned officer positions — well short of the 100 Inkelaar says Whipple promised the FOP in 2019. But, as Inkelaar said later in the statement, the department has been unable to fill those positions, let alone 100 or 200.
“The Chief of Police hasn’t asked for additional positions, and until the current positions are filled, I don’t see any reason to add additional positions without a reason supported by data,” Whipple said in a written statement.
Whipple voted for a new FOP contract in 2021 that approved wage rates agreed upon by the FOP and other provisions that police-reform activists and Jensen Hughes were highly critical of. He has also been a staunch advocate for increasing the police budget, despite projected shortfalls throughout the pandemic and in the face of rising inflation. He has voted to increase the Wichita Police Department budget by $30 million compared to 2019, the largest increase of any city department.
Toxic culture, slow police response times
FOP leaders blamed Whipple for slow response times and a toxic culture within the department.
The claims are misleading and require additional context.
FOP claim: “We are running ragged out here trying to protect you,” Inkelaar said. “Citizens are having to wait long periods of time to have officer response. It is no fault of the officer in regards to that. It is the fault of our mayor continuing to have a toxic relationship and our city not supporting the officers.”
Context on response times: Eagle reporting found WPD response times have been getting worse for over a decade, and they’ve gotten worse as the department has added more officers. The reasons for the slower response times identified in that investigation were the number of officers assigned to patrol, a new records management system and more complex community needs that require officers to stay on a scene longer than in the past.
All of those are out of control of a mayor.
The Wichita City Council approved switching to the NicheRMS365 records system prior to Whipple’s election.
Context on toxic culture: A city-funded study by Jensen Hughes found the low morale and toxic culture within the police department stemmed from a lack of direction from department leaders, not the mayor.
Many officers also said they were upset by unfair disciplinary actions, unclear promotional policies and the department’s efforts to diversify, a top initiative of former Chief Gordon Ramsay.
The mayor does not have control over officer discipline or promotional decisions. Whipple has said he agrees with the department’s efforts to more closely reflect Wichita’s diversity.
Whipple is not mentioned in the Jensen Hughes report, but the consultants found that Wichita officers have a high degree of cynicism for politicians in general.
Jensen Hughes found that 72.5% of Wichita officers agreed or strongly agreed that “politicians interfere with the ability to do their jobs,” which was “substantially higher than typically seen in other samples of policing.”
Background: FOP and the mayor
Whipple entered office in 2020 with the support of the FOP. But the relationship soured last year after Whipple criticized the department’s botched internal investigation and failure to discipline officers who sent racist and sexist text messages that celebrated violence against civilians. The FOP has fought against the city’s efforts to discipline officers who initially received “coaching and mentoring” instead of suspensions or training.
Things took a turn for the worse when Whipple led the city’s efforts to hire Jensen Hughes, a police consulting firm, after a city committee partially blamed the FOP for the lack of discipline. Whipple also set up a short-lived oversight committee that published the number of FOP complaints filed against the city by year.
Tensions between the mayor and the police union hit an all-time high in October 2022, when Whipple released body-camera video of an interaction with Wichita police officer Vogt at a neighborhood cleanup event.
Whipple criticized Vogt in an interview with The Eagle, saying the officer failed to turn on his body camera until after he finished yelling at the mayor. The body camera video captured only Whipple’s response. Whipple, who had used the wrong entrance at the neighborhood cleanup, called City Manager Robert Layton on a Saturday and asked to file a complaint against the officer, saying he “didn’t know who I was.” He ultimately dumped three mattresses and other items without waiting in line.
The Wichita Ethics Advisory Board indicated in its report that Whipple’s behavior did not rise to the level of a “serious violation.” It found Whipple “used his office to seek favor and private gain by the manner in which he sought to dump his trash instead of waiting in line. He also used his unique direct access to the City Manager when he called him during an encounter with a police officers, on a Saturday, to make a complaint about the officer.”
The relationship between Whipple and the FOP has remained frayed, with the two clashing over a New Year’s eve brawl involving a uniformed police officer working off-duty security at Roller City skating rink in south Wichita. The officer used force against a teenage boy after being punched in the head. Whipple, who has a background in martial arts, commented that the amount of force used by the officer on a teenage boy was inappropriate.
“When I saw a grown trained armed man with 100 pounds on that kid posture up and try to kill him with a punch like that . . . I know that this could have been a lot worse,” Whipple said at a news conference after the incident. “He didn’t deserve to be thrown into a wall, slammed to the ground and have someone sit on his back, and then handcuffed.”
No charges were filed against the officer. Inkelaar said the officer followed the city’s use of force policy.
“Reckless,” Inkelaar said Monday of Whipple’s statements. “That’s all I can say — reckless to incite these words, knowing that this is going to cause an uproar in the community before having the facts of what occurred. . . . But yet your mayor comes up here to try to incite anger and try to confuse everybody what has occurred instead of finding out what occurred during supporting the officers and allowing investigation to occur.”
Casey Slaughter, a Wichita police captain and president of the Kansas FOP, went further on Monday — blaming Whipple’s actions at the neighborhood cleanup for the Roller City scuffle.
“Our kids pay attention to us as role models, and they expect us to act like the role models that we are,” Slaughter said. “It’s no wonder why the Roller City incident occurred. You have in that case, someone disrespecting law enforcement, someone actively attacking law enforcement. Look no further than Mayor Whipple, who did exactly the same thing at the neighborhood cleanup. He didn’t comply. He didn’t follow directions. He didn’t apologize. And then he attacked the officer verbally and publicly for what the officer was doing just to do his job.”
Whipple said he was attempting to hold the police department accountable.
“As Mayor, my job is to hold the city departments accountable to the taxpayers and residents of our community, which is different than attacking anyone,” Whipple said. “That includes our police department. Doing my job isn’t anti-law enforcement. My record proves I support public safety, even if the FOP doesn’t like that fact.”
