Wichita officials seek dismissal in $2.4M lawsuit brought by deputy police chiefs

The city of Wichita, multiple city officials and the Fraternal Order of Police are asking a federal court to dismiss a $2.4 million lawsuit filed by former Police Chief Gordon Ramsay’s leadership team.

In recent court filings, the city’s lawyers called the civil complaint filed by Deputy Chief Jose Salcido and former deputy chiefs Wanda Parker-Givens and Chester Pinkston “a press release in the guise of a pleading” that fails to state “who did what to whom.”

City officials have declined to comment on the lawsuit since it was filed in February. The motion to dismiss is the city’s first official response to the lawsuit, which accuses the city manager, a former human resources director and the police union of undermining their attempts to clean up the department. It does not respond directly to any of the allegations outlined in the 41-page civil complaint. Instead, as is common in such motions, it attempts to undercut the legal basis for suing.

A dismissal at this stage would end the lawsuit before details become public that could resolve unanswered questions about who knew what when about a text messaging scandal and other troubling accusations surrounding police discipline.

Salcido, Parker-Givens and Pinkston claim in the lawsuit that city officials retaliated against them and conspired to “defame, punish and drive out” the three leaders from their positions in the Wichita Police Department after they “attempted on numerous occasions to root out and deal with systemic issues and implement much needed changes to create greater transparency, discipline and accountability for the Wichita Police Department.”

The deputy chiefs were not fired or demoted, nor did they face adverse employment action, the city says. Parker-Givens took early retirement in January 2022; Pinkston left the department in January to take a job as chief of police in Liberal, Kansas; and Salcido remains employed as deputy chief over the investigations division.

Their claims in the lawsuit stand in contrast to a city manager’s office review of their handling of racist and inappropriate text messages sent by police officers. The messages were first made public by Wichita Eagle investigative reporting in March 2022, three weeks after Ramsay resigned.

The city’s review found Ramsay and his deputy chiefs “failed to exercise leadership,” signed off on lesser discipline for the officers and failed to address significant Brady-Giglio implications, which can be used to question the credibility of officers in criminal trials. It went on to say that statements made by Pinkston and Salcido during the review showed “a lack of clear understanding of the impact that the officers’ misconduct has on the community, WPD and the City of Wichita and seemingly excuse the officers’ actions.” Ramsay has called into question the findings because of former Human Resources Director Chris Bezruki’s involvement in the review.

Eagle reporting into the mishandling of officer discipline after the text messages prompted the city to reopen internal investigations into a dozen members of the SWAT team and suspend three officers for sending the offensive messages.

The deputy chiefs’ lawsuit says they wanted to “appropriately discipline those involved” but their efforts were thwarted by Bezruki, then-director of human resources, who they say overrode their decision by saying the text messages were protected by the First Amendment.

The deputy chiefs’ lawsuit is filled with accusations aimed at Bezruki and City Manager Robert Layton, who they claim lied to the public about his knowledge of the texting investigation, a claim he has disputed.

The lawsuit claimed Ramsay asked Layton to “keep Bezruki out of the investigation,” but Layton “refused and instead tried to brush the text scandal under the rug.”

In the lawsuit, they accuse Layton of standing pat while Bezruki accepted gifts of alcohol and dinners from the Fraternal Order of Police while he was negotiating the city’s police union contract, which has been criticized for years for shielding officers from accountability. Most recently, a Jensen Hughes report recommended renegotiating the contract because it allows officers to review witness statements and evidence that may be used against them before giving a statement in internal investigations.

Individual defendants in the federal lawsuit include Layton, Bezruki, former interim Chief Troy Livingston, former police captains Kevin Kochenderfer and Wendell Nicholson, FOP president and Wichita detective Dave Inkelaar, FOP senior chief lodge steward Officer Paul Zamorano, and City Council member and mayoral candidate Bryan Frye, who publicly accused Salcido and Pinkston of extortion and called on them to resign at a City Council meeting in September.

They filed motions to dismiss as three separate defendant groups, but they each make similar arguments.

Frye, Kochenderfer and Nicholson are being represented by Corey M. Adams and G. Andrew Marino of Wichita-based law firm Gibson Watson Marino LLC. The city, Layton and Livingston are represented by David R. Cooper and Charles E. Branson of Fisher Patterson, Sayler & Smith LLP, with city attorneys Jennifer Magana and Sharon Dickgrafe also serving on the city’s legal team.

The city is providing legal counsel to Layton, Frye, Kochenderfer, Nicholson and Livingston. The city is also paying for Bezruki’s defense. He is represented by J. Phillip Gragson of Topeka-based Henson, Hutton, Mudrick, Gragson & Vogelsberg LLP.

Layton and Frye are the only two in the group who are now employed by the city. Kochenderfer retired in November 2021 and is head of security for Ascension. Nicholson retired last month, one day before being charged with eight felony computer crimes. Livingston stepped aside in November when the city hired Joe Sullivan as its full-time chief. And Bezruki retired in December.

The city is not paying for defense of the FOP, Inkelaar and Zamorano, who are represented by Mark J. Galus of Overland Park-based The Aubry Law Firm, P.A. Inkelaar and Zamorano are both active officers in the Wichita Police Department.

Separate from the federal lawsuit, Salcido and Pinkston filed ethics complaints against Frye with the city’s ethics advisory board, which last week ruled Frye’s comments were protected by the First Amendment and did not breach the city’s ethics policy. Thompson, their lawyer in the federal case, said they plan to ask the board to reconsider.

Frye’s lawyer in the federal lawsuit is asking the court to dismiss him from the lawsuit under the Kansas anti-SLAPP statute meant to protect against “meritless lawsuits that chill free speech.”

Nine of the 10 defendants in the lawsuit say in court filings that Salcido, Pinkston and Parker-Givens lobbed allegations against them without providing facts to support the legal conclusions in the complaint, which they say does not give them an opportunity to defend themselves. Bezruki has been granted an extension to file a similar motion.

“The failure to describe the personal participation by the individual defendants is fatal to plaintiffs’ effort to state a claim against them,” the city’s motion to dismiss says.

The city argued that the deputy chiefs’ lawyer, former Democratic congressional candidate James Thompson, failed to provide “a short and plain statement” that complies with federal rules of civil procedure, and the case should therefore be dismissed.

“To the extent the complaint does allege who did what and when, the ‘what’ is not a constitutional violation, is not an adverse employment action, and/or is not wrongful/tortious conduct under state law,” the city’s filing says.