JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

For all the wrong reasons, people from Kansas, Oklahoma and Kansas City, MO, made The New York Times today.

Let’s run down the list…

Kansas

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, whose other home is in Wichita, is coming under increased scrutiny for reportedly having State Department underlings do such things as pick up restaurant takeout meals, pick up his dry cleaning and walk his dog.

Another issue is the propriety of wife Susan making overseas trips with him (at taxpayer expense, of course) and exercising Secretary-of-State-type authority. (That will smack a familiar refrain with Kansas City residents who recall the role former Kansas City Mayor Mark Funkhouser’s wife Gloria Squitiro played in his ignominious administration.)

Regarding Pompeo, let’s just say he’s the worst secretary of state since…well, at least since Rex Tillerson, whom President Trump fired two years ago. (Now there was a match made in hell. In one meeting with senior administration officials, Tillerson reportedly referred to Trump as “a moron.” And later, after firing him, Trump said Tillerson was “dumb as a rock.”)

The Times story says Tillerson “was perceived as aloof and dismissive.”

Pompeo, on the other hand, is smug and crooked.

Last week, at Pompeo’s request, Trump fired the State Department inspector general, who was investigating Pompeo’s alleged misuse of personnel. Today, Pompeo said the firing of Inspector General Steve Linick was not an act of political retaliation because he didn’t know beforehand that Linick was investigating allegations that Pompeo had an aide run personal errands for him.

Yeah, uh-huh, the guy just wasn’t living up to Pompeo’s high expectations of a high-ranking public official.

Oklahoma

Here we go again with another self-anointed, white, neighborhood watchdog detaining (but at least not killing) a black man.

Forty-three-year-old Travis Miller Sr., an appliance and furniture deliveryman, had completed a delivery in the Oklahoma City suburb of Edmond on May 11 when the president of the gated community’s homeowners association blocked Miller’s truck as he approached the exit gate.

The association president, David Stewart, approached Miller’s truck and said he would move his car if Miller told him where he and his co-worker, also black, were going. Miller, who was wearing a uniform bearing his name, called his supervisor and then started recording the incident on Facebook Live. In the 37-minute video, which has been viewed more than half a million times, Miller says, “I’m trying to leave, and I got Super Neighbor over here blocking me in, so I’m going live.”

Here’s one of the more interesting exchanges that took place between Miller and Super Neighbor:

Miller: You do realize this is unlawful detainment, right? You have absolutely no reason and no right to hold me here and block me with your car.

SN: All I need to know is why you’re here.

Miller: You don’t need to know anything.

SN: I own one-eighteenth of what you’re sitting on. This street is private. This is not city property. This street is maintained by the people that live in here.

Miller: You’re being nosy. That’s all you’re doing. You’re trying to use privilege, and you’re not getting it from me. Just move your car. Unlawful detainment.

Finally, the customer who had taken the delivery from Miller came along and spoke to Stewart, and Stewart allowed Miller to pass.

…I wonder, just wonder, who David Stewart plans to vote for in November. That would be interesting to know, wouldn’t it?

Kansas City

Last week The Star reported that two KCPD officers had been indicted on misdemeanor charges after being caught on video using excessive force to arrest Breona Hill, a transgender woman, last May 24. The story is on Page A21 of today’s NYT.

The police department was not cooperative with the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office. Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said in a news release that her office was “prevented from filing the charge independent of a Grand Jury” after the police department declined to submit a probable cause statement to the prosecutor’s office.

(When charges are filed on the basis of “information,” the probable cause statement provides the rationale for charges. A grand jury can indict on the basis of testimony it hears and evidence presented; “probable cause” is not a factor.)

In response to Baker, Police Chief Rick Smith said the department didn’t submit a probable cause statement because investigators determined there was “no probable cause to conclude the officers broke the law.” He added, however, that the department submitted the case file to the prosecutor’s office, to federal prosecutors and to the FBI.

To be sure, this is an odd case. Hill had created a ruckus at a beauty supply store before police were called, and she might well have been mouthy with police, and maybe she even put up some resistance. But there is no reason for the officers to have slammed her face against the sidewalk and kneed her in the face, torso and ribs, as the indictment and video indicate.

The officers — Matthew Brummett and Charles Prichard — could be fined $2,000 and sentenced to a year in jail if they are convicted of the low-level assault charges.

I would imagine that the video will be the main evidence if the case goes to trial. That’s because there’s another oddity to this case: The victim, Hill, was shot to death in an unrelated incident last October. A suspect has been charged in that case.

…Regardless of what kind of lifestyle Hill was living, Brummett and Prichard almost certainly went too far last May 24. And it’s just another instance of KCPD playing down and covering up cases of excessive force.

If it wants to start regaining public confidence, this department should do three things: Start being more forthcoming with the press and public, start holding its officers to a higher standard of conduct, and come up with a plan to try to reduce the incredibly high murder rate.

As it is, this department is looking increasingly hidebound and reactive.