Civil Rights Leader Seeks Court Action to Intervene in Kansas City Police Lawsuit Against City

The head of the Urban League of Greater Kansas City (Kansas City, MO) is seeking court action, filing a motion Monday to join a lawsuit filed by the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners against Mayor Quinton Lucas and the City Council challenging a measure that gives the city authority over a portion of the police department’s budget,

In her filing, Urban League president Gwen Grant alleges that the “current policing structure” fails to give Kansas City taxpayers a voice in how the police department spends its money.

Grant said she took the action on behalf of the city’s taxpayers because “the ‘Taxation Without Representation’ scheme maintained in the police board’s lawsuit and the current policing structure violates” the Missouri Hancock Amendment, which is a citizens’ initiative that limits state revenues and local taxes.

“Today, I filed a motion to intervene in the lawsuit filed by the Board of Police Commissioners in order to assert my constitutional rights as a Kansas City taxpayer and as an African American,” Grant said in a written statement. “Enough is enough. Kansas Citians cannot be made to write a blank check to a Board that does not answer to us, is unrepresentative of our needs, and sues our elected officials when they don’t acquiesce to the Board’s every demand.”

The City Council, last month voted 9-4 to cut this year’s police budget back to 20% of the city’s general fund, the minimum required by Missouri law.

The savings of $42.3 million would be reallocated to a newly devised “Community Services and Prevention Fund.”

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