Well this is passing strange.
I wrote three weeks ago that for the first time since he has been U.S. Attorney General, I agreed with a decision made by William Barr.
In that case, the Department of Justice issued a press release scheduling execution dates for four death-row inmates, including two of the Kansas City area’s most horrific rapists/murderers, Keith Nelson (Pamela Butler) and Wesley Purkey (Jennifer Long and Mary Ruth Bales).
Barr
Then came more welcome news late yesterday: The Justice Department is launching a new initiative to curb violent crime in Kansas City. The project will be named after LeGend Taliferro, the 4-year-old boy who was recently shot and killed in a drive-by shooting near 63rd and The Paseo as he slept in his bedroom.
The goal of Operation Legend will be to quell a “surge of violent crime.”
This appears to be a very focused and significant project. More than 100 agents from the four Justice Department law enforcement agencies — the FBI, the United States Marshals Service, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — will be dispatched to work with state and local law enforcement agencies.
The department will also send additional resources to Timothy A. Garrison, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri, to help handle an expected increase in prosecutions, the release said.
Operation Legend will begin in Kansas City and be expanded to other cities dealing with rising rates of violent crime, the release said.
Mayor Quinton Lucas said his understanding was the federal officials investigate unsolved murders and shootings and would not participate in daily policing or patrol activities.
Obviously, the timing could not be better. Kansas City is on pace to set a record for homicides in one year, and the Kansas City Police Department’s homicide resolution rate stands at about 50 percent, significantly below the national average.
Moreover, the situation seems to have swallowed up the police department.
The Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners — all but one of whose five members is appointed by the governor — has not directed Chief Rick Smith to produce a plan to address the spiraling murder rate, and Smith has not volunteered to produce one.
What we have seen, as I have written before, is Lucas — the only police board member not appointed by the governor — beating his breast and inviting the public to hold him accountable for the murder rate.
I don’t know why he does that because he is only one of five votes on the police board, having neither the power to fire Smith nor the ability to direct him to come up with a plan.
As a result, we’ve got a police department and city administration that are about 100 yards apart physically but about 10 miles apart in every other sense.
It’s a shitty situation, and it is abundantly clear that it is time for control of the police department to transfer from the state to the city. Unfortunately, that is probably going to take two elections (one local and one state) and maybe years or even decades.
…In the meantime, Bill Barr has made another good move. From 1,000 miles away, he could see the Kansas City Police Department wasn’t up to the job and is sending help.
Thanks, Bill…You’ve got a long way to go to redeem yourself, but you’re headed in the right direction.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
If, and that’s a large if, Bill “Low” Barr’s intentions are honest, and even if his people come in and effect positive change, I’ll still continue to lobby my Representative to have the toad impeached.
Actually, Fitz, this is the WORST time to try to return control of KCPD to the misguided fools on the city council! And why should Rex Sinquefield and his Show Me Institute finance the elections to accomplish that? Which he offered the city when he did a similar ballot initiative for STL? And KCMO council rejected the help?
Acutally, it was Sly James, not the other members of the City Council who told Sinquefield — or someone representing him — KC was not ready to put the issue to a vote. As I’ve said before, that was a big mistake, in no small part because Sinquefield, as you point out, was going to finance the statewide election with or without KC. It was a golden opportunity squandered. On the other hand, that was 2012, when crime, especially the homicide rate, wasn’t nearly what it is now.
State control has never been the best way to go, but with all that’s gone on the last several years — Forte’s $500,000 walkaway windfall, Smith’s unwillingness to connect with the East Side, his overreaction to protesters and the police board’s suspension from reality — it is abundantly clear that the time is indeed NOW!
I can’t trust there isn’t some underlying motive here. If they truly come in and help solve existing cases, great. If they are somehow assisting with policing the streets, as Trump’s press secretary insinuated, that’s a serious problem. We need local control over the police department – I fail to see how bringing in higher-level enforcement rectifies that issue.
I would say Barr’s motive is to swoop in and show he — and the Trump administration — are on the ball and ready and willing to go into big, liberal cities and pull their fat out of the fire. But I don’t care what his motives are; it the federal assistance brings about improvement, I’ll be the first to applaud again. And you should be doing same. This is the old gift horse…
I agree with Tracy but in an even more dramatic way. All across the country our great cities are falling apart owing to corrupt city regimes. Something needs to be done on a massive scale to clean these sewers out. One thinks of Baltimore where one crooked mayor is replacing another.
In many cases, the problem is magnified by pathetically useless prosecutors like we have here in the metro in Jean Peter baker and Mark Dupree. How ludicrous it is to blame the police when people of their ilk pander to the mob by throwing criminals right back out on the street regardless their crimes. How idiotic to talk about gun control when felons arrested in possession of a firearm have their charges reduced to misdemeanors.
Bottom line if that our great cities have a thick coating of scum that is destroying them. We need to find ways to take even more control away from them, not give them a fast track to anarchy.
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/505944-americans-leave-large-cities-for-suburban-areas-and-rural-towns
And with good reason.
For those like Jim who advocate for local control, I have some questions:
–What evidence, data, research, or experience clearly demonstrates local control is a better, more effective way to manage large metro a police department?
–Has anyone promoting local control of the KCPD studied what’s happened in St. Louis since 2012 when the city took over direct supervision of the PD? A state legislator from St. Louis who advocated for local control now thinks the decision to swap control was a bad one.
–What would improve under local control? Accountability (whatever that is)? If KC’s is one of two PD’s still under state control — and all other departments are under local control — are the majority of police departments the size of Kansas City’s any more accountable? Think protests.
–Under local control, what happens with the FOP? Under state control, it isn’t fully recognized as a union and doesn’t bargain for wages and salaries. Under local control, what prevents the FOP from bargaining directly with City Hall, as they do in Independence? Think of the political power the FPO could have, backing or working against councilmembers. Will the city council members suddenly have 2,000 patrons to satisfy, as well as their network of friends and supporters?
–What change in the police policy demanded recently by KC’s citizens is being thwarted because of state control? Lately, Chief Smith and the Police Board acted quickly to implement change in police policy or have promised to review policies. What says the city council could have acted faster or more directly?
Just for the record, the state rep who wants control of SLPD returned to the state introduced early this year a bill that would do just that. Not only did it not go anywhere, it didn’t even get a hearing in committee. The rep, Chris Carter, a St. Louis Democrat, contends the police department lacks oversight and about “unfair distribution of resources in north St. Louis,” where his district is located.
The contention about better oversight with the state is ridiculous. St. Louis wanted local control precisely because it guaranteed closer oversight. Carter sounds to me like a lone wolf lashing out because of the alleged “unfair distribution of resources.” No matter who runs any big police department, you’re always going to see squabbles over how the pie is being cut.
Stupid question – is Bill Barr a legend in his own mind?
Not stupid, just rhetorical.
Deeper in the story a state senator from St. L. also says local control isn’ working. The fact Carter’s idea went nowhere is hardly a measure of what St. Louis residents think about the state of the PD, which I believe is now under investigation by the DOJ.
I never said state control was superior. I prefer to see something that shows the public how their police service will improve in the hands of the council and mayor.
How much closer can oversight get than five people in a room hashing out policy? What evidence shows Parson has any hand in the board’s decisions? The board members are bi-partisan, by state law. No one represents a special-interest constituency, at least not one that’s detectable. And no police board member, in my memory, has ever been charged with and convicted of a crime derived from their civic duty, let alone gone to prison. Can the city council say that?
Agree! Well said as always.
Let’s be real: Barr is beyond redemption. He is yet one more in the long list of Trump lackeys whose sole loyalty is to Trump rather than the people and the Constitution.
Of course he is, but, as the saying goes, even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.
With respect. Isn’t Kansas City the only city under state control?
Good catch, Judge. I saw that in “pagesfromacoldbasement’s” comment, but there was so much else there that confounded me that I forgot to address it.
Judge, Baltimore is still trying to wrest its PD from “state control.”
https://www.baltimoresun.com/politics/bs-md-local-control-police-20190405-story.html
https://www.abell.org/publications/baltimore-police-department-understanding-its-status-state-agency
Judge Scoville and I stand corrected (although I’m in good company.) Interesting piece on the Abell Foundation’s website. (I couldn’t access The Sun’s story because of the pay wall.)
One interesting aspect of the Abell store is this…
“While the Department’s status as a State Agency does place some constraints on the Mayor and City Council, the Mayor has the power to appoint and terminate the Commissioner and to control funding for the Department’s operation and initiatives. The City Council has some influence in the appointment process (as it has recently demonstrated) and in the budget process.”
That’s a hell of a lot more local control than Kansas City has, which is just about zip.
With that, I think we’ll wrap up this discussion.