Kansas City gets a new police chief this year. Forum invites community to conversation

Kansas City will get a new police chief this year. While much about the timeline and process is still not clear, some community leaders are welcoming input from across the city.

A virtual community forum, an opportunity to gather citywide input on who next should hold the position and what that individual should prioritize, is scheduled for this weekend.

“Let your voice be heard by the board of police commissioners,” reads the flier advertising the event, which invites community members to “an engaging community dialogue regarding the qualifications, qualities and characteristics of our next police chief.”

The forum, which begins at 10 a.m. Saturday, will be moderated by Gwen Grant, president of the Urban League of Greater Kansas City who has been an outspoken critic of current Police Chief Rick Smith.

Damon Daniel, President of Ad Hoc Group Against Crime; Melesa Johnson, Deputy Chief of Staff for Kansas City’s mayor; Lora McDonald, Executive Director of MORE2; and Councilwoman Melissa Robinson, who represents the third district, are part of the panel.

The new chief will be chosen by the Board of Police Commissioners, whose members are mostly chosen by Missouri’s governor, and who include Mayor Quinton Lucas. But Kansas Citians’ taxes will pay the person’s salary.

On Twitter, Robinson invited the public to participate in the forum.

“Help us deliver a collective voice to the Board of Police Commissioners,” she wrote.

To better understand what city residents want in their next police chief, The Star in December put out an online survey. Respondents, and more than a dozen local leaders interviewed by The Star, generally said they hope the board will hire a leader prepared to take police accountability and the city’s homicide rate seriously.

“I’m looking for a good person who cares about making this community a heck of a lot safer than it’s ever been in my entire life,” Mayor Quinton Lucas said at the time, “and I’m gonna listen to different people and their views on how we get there.”

Some residents said they want the next top cop to be a person of color or a woman. The department has never had a female police chief outside of those who held the position on an interim basis.

The search for a new chief will happen under heightened scrutiny. Smith is leaving the department in April after he was pushed to retire early following the historic conviction of a white police detective in the killing of a Black man.

During the process to hire Smith after Police Chief Darryl Forté retired in 2017, the police board tapped an outside firm to conduct a national search for a new chief. The months-long process included interviews with board members and a series of public meetings to receive input from residents.

It remains unclear what the hiring process will look like in the coming months.

The Star’s Luke Nozicka contributed to this report.