After three straight years in the “finalist” role, Melinda Henneberger finally got over the top today and won a Pulitzer Prize for her resolute, journalistic campaign to hold former Kansas City, KS, detective Roger Golubski to account for his own resolute campaign to besmirch the badge.
Congratulations to The Star and Melinda!
Henneberger, who announced recently she was leaving The Star to write a regular column for McClatchy’s flagship paper The Sacramento Bee, was quoted on The Star’s website as saying she was overwhelmed.
I really don’t know what to say except that this is extremely humbling and, as I may have mentioned a few hundred times before, that it’s past time for the FBI to show up with some handcuffs. If this brings some measure of justice to Roger Golubski’s victims at long last, then that will be the best award.
The line about the FBI and handcuffs couldn’t be more appropriate. He is very credibly alleged to have raped and extorted sexual favors from Black women, sometimes pressuring them into fabricating evidence in cases he was handling.
Who knows how many people were wrongfully charged because Golubski let his sexual appetite and crookedness corrupt his commitment to public service?
Police chief after police chief in KCK averted their eyes at what had to be well known among officers — that Golubski was the worst type of cop.
One of his partners was Terry Zeigler, a former chief. In a court deposition, a woman said Golubski raped her in her home and told her Zeigler was waiting outside in a patrol car. The Star could never get Zeigler to comment.
Golubski retired from the KCK department in 2010 but then worked for the Edwardsville Police Department for six years before retiring completely in 2016.
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The New York Times won four Pulitzers, including one for an investigation into deadly police traffic stops around the country.
The Washington Post won in the public service category for its examination of what led up to, and what transpired during and after, the Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol.
The feature writing award went to Jennifer Senior of The Atlantic for an account of one family’s reckoning with loss in the 20 years since 9/11.
You can read about all the winners here.
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On another police-related matter, Patty, Brooks and I were sitting in the kitchen last night when, about 9:15, we began hearing many sirens, seemingly close by. We live a block from Meyer Circle, so our presumption, when we hear nearby sirens, is always that there was a wreck at the circle.
Patty and Brooks decided to walk down toward the circle to see what was going on. I stayed behind.
When they returned, they reported that a major wreck had, indeed, taken place; that one car was overturned; and that our across-the-street neighbor had told them at least one person had died.
Sure enough, The Star reported today that “one person was killed after being partly ejected through the sunroof of an SUV in a rollover crash on Ward Parkway in Kansas City Sunday evening.”
The victim was as 42-year-old Cory Walter. None of the news outlets was reporting where Walter lived, but whitepages.com shows a Cory Walter, in his 40s, living in Grain Valley.
Walter was one of two occupants of a black Chevrolet Equinox that was westbound in the north leg of the circle and failed to yield to a stop sign in the circle. The Equinox pulled right in front of a southbound, gray Toyota Camry, and the impact overturned the Equinox.
There was a strange twist to the case: The second occupant of the Equinox (police had not determined who was driving) climbed out of the SUV and ran away.
Fortunately, neither of two people in the Camry was injured.
After reading and thinking about this, I sent an email to Mayor Quinton Lucas’ chief of staff, asking her to pass on to him a suggestion…which is, that he encourage the Police Department to launch an all-out campaign on speeding and reckless driving.
As I said in my email, with all the ridiculously scary driving we see every day, I can’t think of a better service to public safety. I believe a sustained barrage of citations would help rein in the frightening situation on our streets and highways.
And don’t tell me it wouldn’t make any difference. When traffic laws are being enforced, word gets around, and speeders notice when reckless compatriots are pulled over and blue lights flashing.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
The Kings. Rush Limbaugh. And now Melinda Henneberger. The KC-to-Sacramento pipeline is still flowing. Did I overlook anyone or anything?
Don’t wring your hands, Tim. I’ve never been to Sacramento, but I know I wouldn’t want to live there. The Kings and g.m. Joe Axelson were a disaster here. And Limbaugh? Thank God he never lived here. Had he, I might have considered Sacramento.
Wasn’t Limbaugh with the Royals for a brief time doing PR?
Not sure what you mean by “Thank God he never lived here.” Limbaugh lived in KC for several years, during which he worked for stations such as KUDL and KMBZ, as well as the Royals.
I’ve never been to Sacramento and don’t see any reason to visit!
Not too good on my early-Rush history.
Are those pink marks related to the crash, or just road art?
Related to the crash. I thought they might indicate where the Equinox ended up, but that doesn’t add up. You can see faint tire tracks from the Equinox coming across Ward Parkway, but I don’t see how the SUV could have ended up directly in line with the tracks if it got hit and overturned. Seems like it would have come to rest farther south, or to the right, of the pink marks.
The photo lets you envision, however, who was coming from where.
Those of us who live in Westport like to think of this part of the city as a “walkable” neighborhood. I haven’t owned a car since 2008. Great parks nearby — Hyde Park, Gillham Park. Southmoreland, Loose Park, Theis Park, Roanoke Park — pretty safe. But walking there is increasingly dangerous — from motor vehicles. Your idea to crack down on crazy driving would benefit pedestrians like me as well as fellow motorists. Can I also complain about loud cars and motorcycles (I used to own two — they don’t have to be loud), and music turned up so loud the windows vibrate?
What exactly do you have in mind when you say “an all-out campaign on speeding and reckless driving?” Do you mean zero-tolerance, so that a driver going 36 MPH on Ward Parkway would get a speeding ticket?
Don’t get me wrong; I’m all for tougher enforcement of traffic laws (particularly on Ward Dragstrip). But, there’s no approach that won’t face a lot of criticism. If police try to crack down, they’re accused of not focusing their efforts on violent crime and, in many cases, being guilty of racial profiling. And, exactly what should be the point at which police write speeding tickets? 5 MPH over the speed limit? 10 MPH? Some discretion in writing tickets is inevitable, but police increase the likelihood of charges of bias whenever they exercise their discretion.
If you do get a response from Lucas, let us know.
The speeding and reckless driving I have been noticing recently involves drivers on area interstates and city thoroughfares who zig and zag in and out of traffic, usually driving at a speed higher than the posted limit.
It is as if they missed out on a lot of stuff during the COVID crisis and are now trying to make it up through aggressive driving.
Two area municipalities who have been proactive against lead-footed drivers are Lenexa which has installed roundabouts in the new City Center development from 79th Street south to K-10 and Prairie Village. The Village has installed speed humps (not “bumps”) throughout the city. P. V. has many parks and lot of small children.
There is an epidemic of thoughtless drivers on Kansas City streets and highways.
Trouble is, as soon as they’re out of those pesky roundabouts they go like a bat out of Hell. I’m afraid, like the poor, the speeders will always be among us.
I’m certainly not talking about a mile or two over the speed limit; I’m talking about 10 or more over, and, as Joe Vaughan says, people “who zig and zag in and out of traffic.” Of course, if the cops started chasing some of those guys, they would see it as a challenge and take off, further endangering others. But the police could get their tag numbers and come knocking later.
And, by the way, Joe, these drivers go way beyond thoughtless; they are downright frightening. It makes me angry to see them doing what they’re doing, knowing they could very easily kill me or a family member or friend. And I’m sure that avast majority of law-abiding drivers feel the same way.
“But the police could get their tags numbers and come knocking later.”
That’s probably not true. Remember that red-light cameras in Missouri were ruled unconstitutional because of the assumption that the owner of the car was the one driving the car at the time of the violation. If the police only have a license plate number without any evidence of who was actually driving the speeding car, it’s likely unconstitutional to issue a speeding ticket only on the basis of a license plate.
Ah hell, Peavy, you’re screwing up all my scenarios…Just get the cops out there with the radar guns and starting machine-gunning the tickets. Okay? Don’t overload form at the expense of function.