National Urban League Applauds DOJ Decision To Investigate KCPD Employment's Discriminatory Practices
URBAN LEAGUE LEADERS APPLAUD DOJ DECISION TO INVESTIGATE KCPD EMPLOYMENT’S DISCRIMINATORY PRACTICES
NEW YORK and KANSAS CITY -- National Urban League President and CEO Marc H. Morial and Urban League of Greater Kansas City President and CEO Gwen Grant today applauded U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland’s decision to investigate the employment practices of the Kansas City Police Department.
Morial and Grant last year urged a full civil rights investigation of the department’s patterns and practices, including its internal culture of racism and discrimination.
“We’re grateful that AG Garland has heeded our call for an investigation, and we will hold Chief Joseph Mabin to his pledge to cooperate fully,” Morial said. “The foundations of the KCPD have had its roots in racism ever since the state seized control of the department away from the citizens of Kansas City in 1874 and it is long past time that this culture was exposed and cast away.”
The citizens of Kansas City and St. Louis were considered “not sound on the Negro question,” according to a state representative at the time, and therefore not to be trusted to manage their own departments. St. Louis took back control of its police force in 2013, leaving Kansas City the only city in Missouri, and the only major city in the United States, without local control of its own police department. Grant has filed suit to return the KCPD to the city’s control.
Grant said, “The same contempt that the department has shown to Kansas City’s Black and Brown communities for decades has fostered within the department as well. We stand ready to work with the Department of Justice as it brings this dark history to light and look forward to crafting a culture of trust and respect between the KCPD and the communities it is sworn to serve.”
In letter last year to Garland, the leaders outlined “troubling allegations of racism in the department, the biased manner in which KCPD policies in predominantly Black inner-city neighborhoods … hostile work environments; racist tropes and microaggressions; uneven execution of personnel policies and procedures; lack of support or representation from the Fraternal Order of Police; and more.”