Wichita police chief talks hirings, firings and more after first year at the helm

Joe Sullivan’s first year as chief of the embattled Wichita Police Department saw an emphasis on hiring more officers – and firing some in discipline cases that had been unaddressed.

He lobbied the City Council to approve a $5,000 retention bonus in 2023 and a 13.27% pay increase for 2024. He says top pay is needed to put more officers on the streets with the intent of improving response times and reducing crime.

“Retention is my first priority,” he said, “and behind that is recruiting new people for the department.”

At the same time, he says, he is moving to address problems he saw after he started work late in 2022 – and to make discipline more equitable in a department officers described as dysfunctional in an independent audit.

“The number of disciplinary actions I’ve taken since I’ve arrived, I am safe to say, is probably unprecedented for quite some time. The department has been doing its job in terms of holding officers accountable, just doing it in a fair and consistent way. I’ve had to fire more people than I would like to have to acknowledge. There was a lot of legacy discipline left behind for myself.”

The hirings and firings are part of how Sullivan is addressing issues in a department that has faced numerous struggles and that has seen police response times more than double since 2010.

Sullivan, a former police leader in Philadelphia, took over the department during a tumultuous time: An audit in September 2022 showed major problems with evidence handling and storage. A text message scandal earlier in 2022 revealed lack of oversight and discipline from top brass.

A report from independent consultant Jensen Hughes after that found discord, a lack of direction, inconsistent discipline and a culture officers described as dysfunctional. And three now former deputy chiefs filed a $2.4 million federal lawsuit alleging corruption, retaliation and discrimination against them.

It’s too early to know whether Sullivan’s actions and leadership will have a lasting impact on police performance and crime in Wichita. Or how much the department will embrace the changes recommended by Jensen Hughes.

But most of the people The Eagle spoke with — including Mayor Brandon Whipple, Sheriff Jeff Easter and other community leaders — say they have been pleased with his progress so far.

“When I compare Sullivan over these last few years, he really struck me as someone who is just on the ball,” said Whipple, noting he’s had multiple chiefs and interim chiefs over his tenure. “He’s someone who knows what he’s doing. … I think he has really restored a lot of the processes and procedures that were so lost in the past.”

As an example, Whipple said, there was a space where Christmas decorations were stored alongside evidence. Sullivan quickly fixed it and restricted access to the sensitive evidence.

Chief’s disciplinary actions

Sullivan would not give specifics about the disciplinary actions he has taken.

Eleven police employees have been fired since he took over, according to termination records provided by the city. Those 11 are part of 17 terminations since March 2022, when the city changed its records system. Two of the 11 were from investigations that started before Sullivan arrived.

In one instance, a male officer with the police academy staff had been harassing female recruits since before Sullivan arrived, sources said. The Eagle is not identifying sources to protect them from retaliation.

Sullivan fired that officer.

Sullivan said he has reviewed discipline of officers under former Police Chief Gordon Ramsay and didn’t agree in some cases. He said he couldn’t provide details.

“I cannot reopen closed cases,” he said.

To ensure equitable discipline in the future, Sullivan said he will oversee it in collaboration with the city’s law department and human resources.

“Officers understand that the discipline is necessary. They just want to know that it is going to be administered in a fair and equitable way,” he said.

The Fraternal Order of Police, which represents police for pay and disciplinary issues, did not respond to a request to comment about Sullivan’s first year at the helm.

Pushing for more pay

The pay increases – including an increase in overtime pay – make the department one of the highest paid in Kansas.

The boost in compensation came after the city reopened its current contract with the Fraternal Order of Police.

But the City Council tabled an initial proposal for $5,000 bonuses in November because it did not address any of the issues Jensen Hughes had identified in the FOP contract. Jensen Hughes did not identify pay as an issue.

After the council’s decision to delay, Sullivan took to the WPD’s Facebook page to express his disapproval.

“This bonus, negotiated and agreed upon in good faith by the FOP, WPD leadership, and various stakeholders within city government, was intended as an unconditional token of appreciation for the tireless efforts of our officers who have been working short handed throughout this year,” he said. “It is disheartening when a well-deserved acknowledgment of hard work faces delays.”

Chase Billingham, a sociology professor at Wichita State University, took to social media to call the public statement “a remarkable repudiation of the mayor and City Council by the sitting chief of police – some might consider it a blatant act of insubordination.”

When the proposal returned to the council in December, it included the 13.2% raise as well as the bonuses, and it addressed one of several changes that Jensen Hughes recommended involving the FOP.

Multiple sources said the FOP, early in the renegotiation process, was unwilling to budge on any of the accountability recommendations from Jensen Hughes — they were only concerned with pay.

FOP President Dave Inkelaar, a WPD sergeant, typically does not return calls from The Eagle and did not answer Eagle questions about this.

Before the council approved the near $10 million increases in pay and bonuses, Inkelaar told the council that “addressing the remaining Jensen Hughes is very important to the FOP.”

The change the FOP conceded to in December was to stop allowing officers under investigation to see all the evidence against them.

Jensen Hughes said that served “no good investigatory purpose” and could “taint the testimony given by the employee during the administrative interview.”

Other contract changes Jensen Hughes has recommended: Stop giving officers $2-an-hour “conduct bonuses” for not violating city policies; change policies that allow officers to trade vacation time and conduct pay to avoid suspensions; define misconduct that triggers removal from specialty teams; eliminate the “statutes of limitations” on filing low-level misconduct complaints; create and approve a code of conduct.

A new contract will be negotiated at the end of 2024.

Sullivan says addressing Jensen-Hughes recommendations is a priority for him.

Staffing, response times, crime stats

The police department’s budget has increased $30 million since 2019 to over $120 million a year. The $10 million increase in pay and bonuses are in addition to that.

Sullivan said the department faces a “major staffing challenge” with over 100 positions open. He said the pay raises would increase morale, keep officers who thought about leaving or retiring in place, and attract new officers.

Although the department has been unable to fill all its vacant positions for years, it has more officers than in the past and fewer calls.

Still, police response times have more than doubled over 13 years – from an average of 10 minutes and 46 seconds in 2010 to 25 minutes and 13 seconds in 2022 for all calls, an Eagle analysis of response time data shows.

It’s unclear if response times have improved since Sullivan arrived. Sedgwick County Emergency Communications keeps records on WPD calls but is unable to pull that data under a new record system that started in April.

Similarly, it would be hard to say any changes in crime this early on in Sullivan’s tenure are because of changes he made.

Comparing five years of crime data through November, most categories of violent and non-violent crime continue the downward trends of the last few years after spiking locally and nationwide during the pandemic in 2020.

But some of WPD’s crime numbers have been questioned.

Wichita police started a new records system, NicheRMS365, in 2021 that caused issues with reporting crime and crash data. Even before that, police data didn’t align with crime numbers that the KBI and FBI have for Wichita, though those numbers come from police.

After The Eagle reported on the numbers not aligning earlier this year, Sullivan had the KBI reopen its 2022 annual data submission to get accurate data in.

Sullivan said he has added steps to ensure the data is accurate going forward.

Putting more officers on the street

Sullivan said he has taken several other steps to put more officers on the street and free them up to respond to 911 calls:

• Started a call center where officers on light duty take phone reports on 911 calls that don’t need a police response. A dispatcher or officer on patrol can refer calls to the center. Since it is run by commissioned officers, and not civilians, they can take more serious cases, such as domestic violence calls and assaults. A designated unit can then follow up and gather evidence if needed. Police said in a September post on Facebook that “73 percent of citizens who experienced this service … stated that they would recommend this method to others.” The call center had made 1,488 reports as of Dec. 8, police said.

• Expanded a unit that does reports on car crashes and gathers video evidence by 10 officers, up to a total of 22. The idea is that this frees up other officers to respond to emergencies.

• Moved 14 community policing officers back to patrol. Each bureau — north, south, east, west — still has five community policing officers, Sullivan said. Those officers work with community groups, keeping them aware of crime trends and improving the relationship between them and the department.

• Started requiring detectives to work nights. Before, officers would do much of the legwork, including gathering evidence. This change frees up officers for 911 calls and keeps them from doing work that detectives are more qualified to do. Additionally, a lieutenant is now on duty each night.

• Started a recruiting team that launched different initiatives, including shortening the hiring process time. In the past, potential officers have taken other jobs while waiting for a police academy to start. WPD has academies twice a year. Now, an officer can be hired right away and be plugged into an area of the department until the academy starts.

• Started offering transfers from other cities higher pay based on their experience and a shortened police academy. They have had applicants but no hires yet.

‘A lot of great strides’

WPD’s new record system has also had a problem connecting with the sheriff’s office’s new system. It’s caused longer delays for Wichita officers taking someone to the Sedgwick County Jail.

“Since he came here it has been a much more collaborative effort on how to make our Niche and Tyler (Technologies) system connected,” Easter said. “This is very important. We have to get this done.”

Easter mentioned other ways Sullivan has helped improve the relationship between the departments: They have agreed to investigate each other’s officer-involved shootings and in-custody deaths. They recently got a couple of DEA agents embedded in their shared drug unit.

“There are things that go on in Wichita that we (used to) have no clue about,” Easter said. “The chief has made it very clear to his staff that we need to know what is going on.”

Easter spent more than 20 years with the police department. He rose from a patrol officer to a captain at WPD and still has many friends in the department.

“I know myself that there is some leeriness still (with some officers),” he said. “Yeah, he has been here a year but it’s still pretty new, but what I am hearing is that they are starting to move in a positive direction.”

Easter added: “I think he has made a lot of great strides for the police department.”

The Rev. C. Richard Kirkendoll is president of the Greater Wichita Ministerial League and was part of the chief selection committee.

“He is very transparent. He’s very open,” he said. “If you asked to talk to him, well you better have a few minutes … I just think he is a good chief. I think we made a wise decision.”

‘A lot of transparency issues’

Faith Martin, who was on the selection committee composed of community members who interviewed Sullivan, offered a different view. She is a member of the Racial Profiling Advisory Board. She also sits on Eastridge Neighborhood Association and the District 2 Advisory Board.

Martin said she’s had a hard time getting in touch with Sullivan and getting crime data since he took over.

“There’s just been a lot of transparency issues,” she said, adding the advisory board and the Citizens Review Board haven’t had an “adversarial relationship (with police) in the past, but it feels that way now.”

Martin, who frequently attends the CRB meetings as a representative of the advisory board, pointed to information the CRB has been asking for and not getting. She said they have asked Sullivan to come to multiple meetings and he hasn’t.

The CRB, which can review police disciplinary cases, has been getting less information than it has in the past, though the Jensen Hughes study recommended that it get more information or a copy of the complaint.

“They have asked for additional information and (Capt. Travis Easter) talked to me about this before and he is reviewing this request, but we have to make sure we are not doing anything that is in violation of the contract (with the union). We have to make sure that we don’t do anything that is in violation of labor law in Kansas,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan said the department is more transparent, pointing to the recent announcement that the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office will investigate Wichita’s officer-involved shootings. Sullivan also said he’s aware that the CRB has wanted him to come to meetings, but the board chair hadn’t made an official request.

The department has been releasing less information to the media on cases since Sullivan took over. Under newly hired senior public information officer Andrew Ford, the department requires open records requests for basic details on cases. Those details had always been available in the past. The department now typically takes days to answer a request and has been rejecting requests for additional details, citing ongoing open investigations.

Ford says this way allows the department to track requests and ensure that they aren’t jeopardizing an investigation.

Other accomplishments

Sullivan highlighted other accomplishments for his first year:

• A department-wide training on de-escalation. Sullivan said the evidence-based Integrating Communications, Assessment and Tactics training has been proven to lead to fewer use-of-force incidents and fewer citizens and officers being injured.

• Shortening the turnaround time of cases where an officer is investigated. He said the process is still as rigorous, but getting those investigations done more quickly frees officers from the worry of those cases hanging over their heads. Cases in the past have dragged on for well over a year. He also put a captain over the professional standards bureau; before the highest person was a lieutenant.

• Started the process of getting the department accreditation through the Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center. Sullivan said this will ensure the department is doing best practices in all areas.

“This dovetails perfectly into Jensen Hughes in that many of the things that accreditation requires are things that have been recommended in Jensen Hughes,” he said.

Things to come

Besides adding more officers to patrol, Sullivan expects the following in 2024:

• Training a group of patrol officers to be sexual assault specialists

• Rolling out a new vehicle pursuit policy. It’s more restrictive than the current one “but will still enable officers to do what they need to maintain public safety,” Sullivan said.

• Getting a grant for an analyst whose sole job will be to gather evidence in overdose cases.

Many people have been impressed with the way Sullivan has handled his first year after taking over the department, including Kansas Senator Oletha Faust-Goudeau.

The Wichita Democrat and member of the Racial Profiling Advisory Board said she’s been happy with what she’s seen and her interactions so far.

”He’s got a big challenge ahead of him,” she said. “I’m still observing and definitely we have to continue to hold everyone accountable … I’m still grading like we all should do.”