Police chases in KC metro kill bystanders. One department chases more than any other

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When Jake Monteer was 12, his father let him take his motorcycle for a spin near their home on Spruce Street in Bates City.

Jake climbed on, confident that he could keep it upright. And he was off. In some ways, he never looked back.

Growing up in the small town just east of Kansas City, Jake’s passion for motorcycles only grew. As an adult, he learned how to fix bikes and rode from daylight to dark.

“I think he just liked feeling free,” his father, David Monteer, said.

Jake Monteer was 41 years old last March, when he and a friend hopped on his motorcycle with a pizza to share. They were driving in Independence when a Jeep, fleeing police in a high-speed chase, hit them.

They both died.

“It feels like part of your heart is ripped out,” David Monteer said during an interview with The Star.

As weeks and months passed, he and his wife Terri Monteer learned more about the circumstances of their son’s death. They found out that police were chasing the Jeep because it was stolen and not for a more serious crime. That one of the officers in the chase had been involved in a previous pursuit that left four people dead. And that it was when police laid down stop sticks in front of the Jeep that it lost control and hit their son’s motorcycle.

“Since when is a stolen vehicle worth somebody’s life?” David Monteer said. “That’s my question.”

It’s a question other families have asked after previous high-speed pursuits by Independence police that seem to repeat the same pattern again and again.

The spot where Jake Monteer and his passenger Jessica Fields were killed is just three miles from the scene where an Independence police pursuit of another stolen Jeep resulted in a crash that killed four people, including several innocent bystanders, in 2018.

And it’s about five miles from where another similar crash in 2014 killed a father of five and injured two others, none of whom were involved in the chase.

Across the Kansas City area, police chases routinely exceed 100 mph, with some chases reaching 130 mph, a review of police reports showed. Officers often pursue drivers for trivial violations and in dangerous conditions, including poor visibility. In various instances, officers have given chase with a civilian ride-along in a patrol vehicle, near a school bus or with juveniles in the suspect’s vehicle.

Less than three weeks ago, a man who had fled from police in Kansas City drove down Interstate 435 in the wrong direction and crashed into an innocent bystander. Both drivers died.

For years, the problem of dangerous high-speed police pursuits has been known to police leaders across the metro. In 2004, after a particularly bad crash in Johnson County, a conversation began about unifying pursuit policies to improve safety — but it hasn’t happened.

Today, many local agencies allow officers to chase at high speed for any infraction, no matter how minor, a policy at odds with guidance offered by national public safety experts. The results are what experts predict: more crashes and more innocent people hurt or killed.

More than 320 people have been injured in the past five years in the metro, according to data from the Kansas Department of Transportation, annual police department reports and a search of news stories from chases in Missouri, which does not track pursuits.

To understand the problem, The Star spent months collecting police pursuit policies and reports from more than 70 law enforcement agencies around the Kansas City area. When reporters identified chases that resulted in crashes that hurt or killed innocent bystanders, they interviewed survivors, family members, attorneys and in one case the fleeing driver responsible for the most devastating of the wrecks.

They also interviewed local police leaders, national law enforcement experts, academics who study chases and advocates for safer policing.

The nine-month Star investigation found that Independence police chase more than any other police force in the area, including the Kansas City Police Department. Among the findings:

In 2022, more than 1,200 police chases took place in the Kansas City metro, resulting in over 150 crashes and 51 injuries. Independence accounted for 33% of those injuries. The Independence Police Department initiated 330 chases in 2022. Kansas City, which is four times larger in population but has a more restrictive policy governing police chases, recorded 98. Over the past six years, eight people have died in chases involving Independence officers. Six were innocent bystanders, one was a passenger in a fleeing car and one was a fleeing driver. According to a report by the Police Executive Research Forum, 70% of police departments placed narrow restrictions on when a chase is warranted. In the Kansas City metro, the rate is about 56%. Where data was available, 17% of the chases violated department policy.

“I think that’s way out of proportion,” attorney Jamie Walker, who is representing the Monteers, said of Independence’s numbers. “It shows that the Police Department does not have appropriate guidelines with respect to car chases.”

Independence police have long defended their policies, which permit high-speed chases for virtually any offense, no matter how minor, in defiance of best practices advocated by experts and policing organizations. In 2022, 72% of Independence pursuits began over traffic violations.

In an interview at Independence Police Department headquarters, Chief Adam Dustman agreed that a stolen car is not worth a life.

But he said the sole responsibility lies with the fleeing driver, not officers. He defended the department’s chase policy and said he does not plan to make any changes to it.

“I understand that some agencies don’t share that same sentiment, but I will tell you that from my seat, where I sit, we have a good policy. It’s backed up by the stats that are there,” Dustman said.

“We’re going to continue to do that. That’s our job. Our job is to seek those that choose to victimize our community.”

Of Independence’s seven-member City Council, which includes Mayor Rory Rowland, only Councilwoman Bridget McCandless agreed to an interview.

She said officials continually reassess the department’s policies.

“We are careful to keep looking at this,” she said. “There’s a public safety cost to saying that people who have encounters with the police and flee and the police don’t pursue, I mean there’s a public safety cost to that as well, and trying to balance those two things against each other, it’s a really challenging place to be.”

McCandless launched a “study session discussion” about chases, which will involve a report from the Police Department and a discussion by the City Council tentatively scheduled for February, Councilman Jared Fears told The Star in an email.

In September, a 160-page report by the Police Executive Research Forum, a nonprofit think tank based in Washington, D.C., said police chases should only be allowed when a violent crime has been committed and there is an imminent threat to safety.

“The notion that chasing someone with a stolen car makes sense — it only makes sense if you’re not concerned about the consequences of endangering that 17-year-old teenager you’re chasing or that couple who have gotten a babysitter and now they’re out having a nice night and then someone rear ends them and they die,” said Chuck Wexler, PERF’s executive director. “And this happens.”

In recent years, such things have happened in Kansas City, Kansas; Bonner Springs; Prairie Village; Kansas City and Lone Jack.

In Independence, it has happened to a father on his way to see his newborn daughter and a mother of five heading home from the grocery store.

And it happened to Jake Monteer.

A son, motorcyclist and mechanic

In his 41 years, Jake Monteer had gotten in trouble a few times, his parents acknowledge. He ran with a wild crowd and didn’t always have a home or steady job. At times, he made decisions that frustrated his dad.

He was more prone to listening to his mother, who he sometimes called “Terri mom” — a term his two older siblings couldn’t get away with using as children. He didn’t keep secrets from her, Terri Monteer said, even though “some of them he should have.”

“He was a mama’s boy,” she said. “He made my heart smile.”

Jake Monteer was also a talented mechanic — there wasn’t much he couldn’t fix, his father said. He was always helping someone out or showing a soft heart in some other way.

When winter approached, he gathered firewood to heat his parents’ home. A couple of years ago, he picked up a dog that had been dumped on the side of the highway, named it Lucky and zipped it into his jacket so they could ride together on his motorcycle.

In June 2022, David and Jake Monteer went to Lake of the Ozarks where a group had gathered for a memorial ride for a friend who had been killed in a motorcycle collision.

They spent the day barbecuing and riding in beautiful weather, David Monteer remembered.

It would be their last ride together.

Pursuit for stolen car reaches 93 mph

As Officer Stauch neared the intersection, “he observed what he thought was debris that had fallen out of the vehicle while it was losing control.”

Once he got close, “he noticed two bodies lying on the street,” court documents said.

Parts of Jake Monteer’s bike had been flung several feet up the street after it had been struck by the Jeep. Their pizza was splattered on the ground.

John Cox Jr. lives near the scene and witnessed part of the chase. After the moment of impact, he crossed Winner Road and an officer handed him a flashlight. When Cox got to Jake Monteer, it was clear he was dead. Fields was face down in a fetal position. All he could see was blood.

“Nothing I want to see again,” Cox said, standing near the scene three months later.

Jake Monteer was declared dead at the scene. Fields, 42, was pronounced dead at a hospital.

The suspect continued through a driveway and a yard before entering westbound Interstate 70 in the wrong direction.

Officers, including Stauch, followed the Jeep in the correct lanes. Eventually, the driver turned onto Lee’s Summit Road and a sergeant pushed the Jeep into the side of a patrol vehicle near 42nd Street, “causing several thousands of dollars in damage” to the patrol vehicle and ending the pursuit.

It wasn’t the first time Stauch, who joined the Independence Police Department in 2007, was involved in a high-speed pursuit that ended with innocent people getting killed.

Two chases, six dead

In 2018 — about three miles from where the chase in March would end in two fatalities — Stauch was involved in a pursuit where four people died. That chase also began over a stolen Jeep.

The driver in that Jeep crossed into Kansas City and struck a silver car that rolled over in a ditch at 23rd Street and Television Place.

Three bystanders died: AaRon Daniel, 29, and Shawn Johnson, 30, cousins who both lived in Kansas City, and Anthony A. Belton Jr., 24 of Kansas City, who were in the silver car. Amanda Perry, 27, a passenger in the Jeep, was also killed. Three others, including the fleeing driver, Victoria Brown, were injured.

According to a review of police chase reports going back to 2018, Stauch has been named in 14 additional pursuits.

Those chases began over stolen cars, license plate and traffic violations, and a motorcyclist under suspicion of being under the influence. None were violent felonies. One chase ended in a crash where two innocent people, both in their 60s, were struck by a fleeing driver and had to be transported to a local hospital, a police report said.

Wexler, with PERF, said if an officer has been “engaged in numerous pursuits with terrible outcomes you’d certainly want to ask a lot of questions as to what is happening in each of those situations and why.”

David Monteer questioned Stauch’s qualifications.

“He might try to find another occupation,” he said.

Stauch was promoted to sergeant three months after the chase that killed Jake Monteer and Fields.

He did not respond to a request for comment.

Policies guide pursuits

According to the Independence Police Department’s policy, detective Gena would have been expected to try to stop the driver from getting into the Jeep before the chase that killed Jake Monteer.

The department’s policy on pursuits states that officers who see an unoccupied stolen vehicle “will make all reasonable efforts to apprehend suspect(s) entering the vehicle prior to the vehicle becoming mobile.”

It’s unclear why he did not try to stop the driver when he got into the Jeep. He did not respond to a request for comment.

The department’s 18-page policy goes on to state that “officers are authorized to initiate a pursuit when it is reasonable to believe that a suspect is attempting to evade arrest or detention by fleeing in a vehicle.” It gives officers wide discretion to begin and continue chasing, though it also says they should consider several factors including the time of day, amount of traffic and weather.

Those broad parameters are frowned upon by policing experts who say the risk outweighs the benefit in most situations.

Twenty-seven agencies in the metro have similarly lax guidelines, including Gladstone, Raytown and Olathe.

Others impose stricter rules.

Police in Grandview, Lee’s Summit and 19 other jurisdictions can chase if a violent felony has been attempted or committed. Sixteen additional agencies have some restrictions but allow for exceptions like suspected drunken drivers. Rangers with Jackson County Parks and Recreation and officers with Metropolitan Community College are banned from chasing.

“You can get a suspect another day, but you can’t get a life back,” Wexler wrote in the introduction of PERF’s report on chases.

The problem has been known in the Kansas City area for years. In 2015, the Hale Center for Journalism reported that 23 people had been killed in 706 pursuit-related crashes in the metro over a period of 10 years.

“The bottom line is that if you think about how policing has evolved, just in the last five to 10 years, everything is about the sanctity of human life and proportionality, meaning whatever action you take, you want it to be proportionate to whatever the issue or threat is, and the number of people across the country who die or are injured as a result of police pursuits is significant,” Wexler said.

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas, who sits on the Board of Police Commissioners, said he was concerned that different policies guided dozens of law enforcement agencies, who sometimes chase into Kansas City.

“I would ask all of their police chiefs and their city leadership, voluntarily, to reevaluate or to evaluate the why in connection with a chase,” he said.

“We have fairly loose rules and borders because we recognize that a threat to one community is often a threat to another. That being said, nobody wants a situation where you have innocents who are falling at risk of something, particularly when officers don’t really know the communities that they may be engaging in a high speed chase through.”

Many jurisdictions with stricter policies had fewer chases. For instance, the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office chased two people in 2022.

The department’s pursuits came under scrutiny after a deputy plowed through a red light in 2018 without its lights and sirens on and struck an uninvolved motorist, severely injuring him. Deputy Sean Stoff pleaded guilty to operating a vehicle in a careless manner. He is still employed at the agency.

Sheriff Darryl Forte’ tightened parts of the policy after that crash.

The sheriff’s policy says, “Deputies will not initiate a vehicle pursuit unless they determine that there is a reasonable belief that the suspect vehicle or occupant(s) present a clear and immediate danger to the safety of others.” Another factor is whether a dangerous felony has been committed.

Sheriff’s offices in Cass, Clay and Platte counties have less restrictive policies. They recorded 54, 108 and 93 chases, respectively.

Bonner Springs, a Kansas town of about 7,800 people, recorded 47 chases and nine crashes. It also allows chases for any reason.

The nearby sheriff’s offices in Johnson County and Wyandotte County have more restrictive policies and recorded nine and four chases in 2022, respectively.

In addition to policy considerations, several experts said there were alternatives to chases. The simplest option is to stop chasing.

Jonathan Farris has advocated for awareness and policy changes as founder of Pursuit for Change, a national organization he launched after his son, Paul, was killed in 2007 in Massachusetts when a fleeing driver struck the taxi Paul was riding in.

“Studies have shown that those people will slow down very quickly once they don’t have a policeman in their rearview mirror,” Farris said.

There are also tools such as StarChase, which deploys a dart with a GPS device.

“That works,” Farris said. “And then they’re able to track where that person goes and gather the resources to get in there without putting anyone in danger.”

StarChase was successful 88% of the time it was used by Independence police in 2022. But not every patrol vehicle is outfitted with the technology, and it was only used in 2% of the department’s pursuits.

‘Not the officer’s fault’

Dustman, who became police chief in Independence in August 2022, acknowledges that other police agencies have more restrictive policies.

Speaking from his office, he said chases are inherently dangerous, but strongly defended the agency’s policy on chases and does not plan to make any changes to it even as three innocent bystanders died last year.

The department in 2022 initiated 13,850 traffic stops. Dustman said a small portion — 330 or 2% resulted in a chase. Of those, 211 were abandoned on the officer’s accord or stopped by a supervisor. In the 119 chases that continued, 124 people were arrested.

“That to me as the chief says that that is a darn good job by our folks that are weighing risk versus reward, risk of the public versus risk of apprehension of the suspect, seriousness of the offense, that the policy that is in place that we have is working,” he said.

While Independence has by far the most chases in the metro, Dustman said each community sets its own expectations.

“There’s a lot of angst that we terminate more than what we should in the community’s mind when it comes to felony shoplifts, felony property damage,” he said.

Dustman said he believes when there is a crash, the driver bears sole responsibility.

“They (the officers) didn’t choose the suspect to go there because of a stolen car and we don’t know that at the time. It may be a stolen car. It may be a homicide suspect. It may be somebody that, you don’t know, they’re running for reason.”

“We didn’t force them into the situation that they were in,” he continued. “They chose to put themselves in that situation. And that is horrific. But that’s not the officer’s fault.”

Every chase is reviewed by at least three levels in the Police Department to judge whether training or policy adjustments need to be made. Data is collected in an annual report. Annual reports dating back to 2018 show that traffic offenses are consistently the predominant reason for a pursuit in Independence.

Dustman said he could look up the number of chases that were within policy, but he would not release personnel information. When asked if the rate could be disclosed with personnel records redacted, Officer Jack Taylor, a spokesman for the Police Department, said the information was closed under Missouri law.

Some police agencies on both sides of the state line provided data on the number of chases that were in compliance with their policies, including Harrisonville, Blue Springs, Grandview, Overland Park, Prairie Village and the Wyandotte County Sheriff’s Office.

Collectively, 17% fell outside the departments’ pursuit policies.

‘Justice for Jake’

Burying Jake was the last thing they could do for him, the Monteers said.

Many people attended his funeral including his teenage daughter, friends, those close to the Monteers and Cox. Though the neighbor who had rushed to the scene hadn’t known Jake, “it was the least I could do,” Cox said.

In late August, Jake’s gravesite did not yet have a headstone. But it was covered with flowers, a blue bandanna hanging from one of the wire decorations and a sign that said “Go easy RIP.”

Flowers have also been placed at the site of the crash along with a bright yellow sign that reads “Watch for motorcycles.”

David and Terri Monteer have now lost both of their boys. Their older son died of cancer about a year and a half before Jake was killed.

“We’ve been through hell,” David Monteer said.

The suspect in the chase was identified as Melvin T. Brown, 27, who faces two counts of second-degree murder, resisting arrest, leaving the scene of an accident and tampering with a motor vehicle. He has pleaded not guilty. A trial is scheduled for March. His attorney did not respond to a request for comment.

David Monteer wants the driver to get 20 years. Terri Monteer says he needs rehabilitation. When a victim’s advocate reached out to them about a possible bond reduction, David Monteer said he was OK with that, but he would like to talk to Brown. Terri Monteer said she wanted to know if he has remorse. She also said she thinks Jake would forgive him.

The Monteers filed a lawsuit against the Independence Police Department in November. It questions why the detective allowed the driver to get into the vehicle prior to the chase and alleges officers placed the stop sticks in a dangerous location. The lawsuit also says that Independence failed to properly train and supervise Stauch, and that the department fosters “a ‘wild west’ culture with respect to vehicle pursuits.”

Since April 2019, Independence has paid out at least $3.88 million for claims and settlements related to police chases.

David Monteer said he wants to see the department change its policy so chases are curtailed.

“I want justice for Jake,” Terri Monteer said. “He should not die in vain.”

How we reported this

After two innocent bystanders were killed in a police chase in March in Independence, Star reporters began looking into law enforcement pursuits in the Kansas City area. Over the next nine months, the reporters filed more than 140 public records requests with more than 60 local law enforcement agencies across the metro. They gathered police pursuit policies and documents recording chases, crashes and injuries over a period of five years.

Reporters also obtained investigative case files from serious and fatal wrecks, including dashboard camera recordings. They reviewed court documents from lawsuits and legal settlements. In all, the team examined more than 4,500 pages of documents, allowing them to identify patterns in police pursuits and practices in the metro.

They also spoke with more than 60 people, including innocent bystanders who were injured in police chases, families of victims killed in pursuits, police officials, attorneys and academics who have been studying the topic for decades. They interviewed a person in prison serving a sentence for killing four people in a crash during a police chase in 2018.

The project is published in a series of eight stories, with videos of interviews and crashes, as well as infographics showing the scope of police pursuits in the metro.

Credits

Katie Moore, Glenn E. Rice and Bill Lukitsch | Reporters

Emily Curiel and Nick Wagner | Visuals

Monty Davis | Video Editing

Neil Nakahodo | Illustrations & Design

David Newcomb | Development & Design