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

I really don’t want to write any more about Rick Smith. He was arguably the worst police chief we’ve had in the last 50 years. But I can’t help myself.

I said in an April 21 post that he would leave office with a handsome payout, and yesterday I found out just what it entailed. It was just short of $275,000.

Here are the details, sent by a Kansas City p.i.o. officer shortly after I requested it.

This package is not as outrageous as the one Smith’s predecessor, Darryl Forte, got — $500,000 — but it’s still way too much.

Of course, this isn’t Smith’s fault; he just took advantage of the liberal policies approved by the tone-deaf, Republican-dominated Board of Police Commissioners. And it shows, again, why we need — but won’t get anytime soon — local control over KCPD.

That Smith can do the damage he did to this once-admirable department and this community and still step aside with more than a quarter of million dollars is a damn shame.

The only way it could have been worse was if it wasn’t a matter of public record…And look out for what’s going on in Jefferson City because the Republican-dominated General Assembly is doing everything it can to dilute the Sunshine Law. In a year or two, those legislators and whoever the next Republican governor is could pretty well have that law gutted.

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If you’ll recall, I took a swipe at Kansas PBS a couple of weeks ago for putting out a ridiculous, promotional plug for a “Week in Review” segment Nick Haines was doing on Smith.

The e-mailed promo said Smith “swings by the Kansas City PBS studios” and “tells all to Nick Haines.”

Anybody who’s watched Smith lead the department the last five years knows there’s never been a “tells all” moment for Smith. He never says anything in interviews. In fact, he gave very few, preferring to “speak” through his blog.

In keeping with form, he didn’t say anything in the interview with Haines, despite Haines’ best effort to get him to be specific. Let me give you a couple of examples from the interview, which aired Friday, April 29.

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Haines: What do you look back on today as your biggest accomplishment?

Smith: Oh, man, there’s a lot, a lot of accomplishments.

Haines: Name one.

Smith: One I think the department’s in a pretty good spot. We’ve had our challenges but we’re doing some things that are great — social workers; technology; the foundation that supports us; the officers restructuring things to make officers be able to do the work that they need to be able to do; trying to take some impact off of our district officers so that they can do the job that they need to do; shift some duties around. I mean all of that, in the whole, makes an impact. The community ties and the neighborhood support we have out there for our officers when they go out and do the work…all of that. It’s one big situation rather than one little piece here and there, in my opinion.

Haines: Do you have any regrets?

Smith: I don’t think I have any regrets.

Haines: Is there anything you would have done differently?

Smith: Of course. There’s all kinds of things you do differently…And I don’t know that I have any one answer to that about, hey, I should have talked to this person or done that, but, you know, overall, were my actions, you know, honorable for the department? I think so. I think I always tried to do it with integrity. Do I wish some things would have panned out? I said May of 2020 would have been a lot different if we didn’t have Covid because this department would have been having meetings and things like that. And there was restrictions and even more challenges getting back to what we normally do. 

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And now, before we bid a final and not-so-fond farewell to Rick Smith, here’s my assessment of his term as chief…

When he took the oath of office, he undoubtedly promised to protect and serve the citizens of Kansas City and the city itself. But from Day One, the city and its residents were down the pecking order, well behind “the department.” (Look again at those two answers above.)

For Smith, the job was all about protecting the department — protecting it when it was in the right and protecting it when it was wrong.

And it was all about protecting each and every officer — every good officer and every bad officer, and there are plenty of both.

The city and many of its citizens suffered greatly under Rick Smith, and, as a result, the department that he loves so much went downhill.

He fell flat. Bam. Right on his face, right in the mud.

Now, let’s turn the page and hope for a better chief in a system that still sucks.