I guess I should have seen this coming: The movement toward significant police reform in Kansas City is becoming splintered and incoherent.
Why? Partly because there are now too many damn cooks in the kitchen.
When this movement got started after the May 25 murder of George Floyd, key civil and human rights groups in Kansas City quickly focused their sights on three goals: 1) Replacing go-along-get-along Police Chief Rick Smith; 2) Implementing a new, independent system for identifying and rooting inappropriate police actions; and 3) Igniting a strong push to wrest control of the police department from the state.
Each of those goals is realistic and attainable, assuming adequate willpower and focus. Three leading civil and human rights organizations — the Urban League, the NAACP and MORE2 — soon came out with a strong, unequivocal statement calling for local control and for Smith to step down. Later, the SCLC joined in.
The focus began to slip, however, when the White House announced that 100 or more federal agents would be coming to Kansas City without a clear mission. Mainly because of mixed signals from the Justice Department, Operation Legend has turned out to be a tremendous and unnecessary distraction, instead of what it could and should be — a well-organized effort to solve cold cases and get a lot of violent criminals off the streets.
But instead of first insisting on clarity and then welcoming the help, the Urban League, the NAACP and the SCLC (the “Big Three”) apparently let an alphabet soup of mostly unheard of organizations distract and divert them.
Perhaps sensing an opportunity to get some TV time, several fringe groups have now jumped into the fray. This week, those fringe groups joined the Big Three in sending to Mayor Quinton Lucas an “open letter” that unnecessarily broadened and otherwise diluted the police-reform movement.
I don’t know why the Big Three let this happen, but they did. The top demand of the letter was for Lucas to reject the help of federal agents, but it went on to open a Pandora’s box of other issues.
It called on Lucas to condemn the “overreach of the racist, violent Trump administration;” to “divest from KCPD” and cut the KCPD buget by half; and to redirect that funding to such things as housing, health care, education and infrastructure.
Other groups that signed the letter, besides the Big Three, were Black Rainbow, One Struggle KC, Sunrise Movement Kansas City, Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURG)and KC Tenants.
The only one of those I’ve heard of is KC Tenants. Why they are involved, I don’t know, except, as I suggested, perhaps they sense an opportunity to heighten their profile.
In any event, these extraneous demands are not helpful. For one thing, it’s become abundantly clear that talk of “divesting” and “defunding” police departments is not realistic and turns off a large majority of citizens. The focus has to be on reform, which a majority of Kansas City residents almost certainly supports by now.
For another thing, the shotgun approach will put less pressure, not more, on Mayor Lucas because it gives him room to say, in effect, “All these demands are unrealistic; it’s too much.”
So far, Lucas has shown he doesn’t have the stomach to confront the Board of Police Commissisoners (of which he is a member) on the issue of replacing Smith or on significant departmental reforms. The pressure on him has to be pointed and unrelenting.
It is now time for the leaders of the mainline organizations — Gwen Grant at the Urban League, Vernon Howard at the SCLC, Rodney Williams at the NAACP and Lora McDonald at MORE2 — to refocus this fight and reassert their leadership.
They should not bow to the disparate demands of various fringe groups and let themselves be pulled into rabbit holes. The minor groups can have a place at the table, but they should be in a clearly supportive role. And they should be reminded time and time again to stay riveted on the main goals:
— A new chief
—Local control
— An independent and transparent system of police accountability
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
The Urban League, the NAACP and MORE2 walked into a bar … oops, a kitchen … well, at the very least, with so many cooks on hand to do the cooking, maybe somebody will get some rabbit stew out of all this when everything is said and done. One can only hope. Meanwhile, according to Jim and others, there’s some unfinished business at City Hall and in Jefferson City.
You haven’t seen anything yet…(De-fund)
I know you’re worried sick about defunding, Cecil, but bolt your doors out there in Overland Park and sleep with one eye open.
I obviously can’t prove it, but I have a feeling Rick Smith is the reason the protests here were largely peaceful. As for local control, anyone looking at Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland and NYC would never support local control.
“Fringe groups” is another codeword for Lynch Mobs. They are smelling blood and coming to feast on the carcass of society.
I’m glad they showed their asses and this movement is failing.
Choose your poison. Anarchy or Order.