Kansas City, Kansas, takes KCPD to court to keep footage from police shootings secret

Kansas City, Kansas, officials are asking a judge to issue a court order preventing the disclosure of investigative files in five police use-of-force cases, including two fatal shootings The Star is seeking through a public records request.

The Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, brought a lawsuit Thursday against the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department, or KCPD. The KCPD investigated the use-of-force cases in question in 2023 as part of an interstate agreement with the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department, or KCKPD.

The lawsuit is centered on which agency holds the records and whether Kansas’ or Missouri’s open records law applies.

Named as defendants in the lawsuit, filed in Platte County, are the Kansas City Police Department and its Board of Police Commissioners.

Sgt. Phillip DiMartino, a spokesman for KCPD, said the department generally does “not comment on pending litigation to ensure fairness to both sides.”

Spokespersons for KCKPD and the Unified Government did not immediately return requests for comment Friday evening.

The Star sought the records from KCPD through the Missouri Sunshine Law, which is more lenient than the Kansas Open Records Act, or KORA.

Under Missouri’s open records law, case files become public once an investigation has concluded. Kansas’ law is narrower — public officials have discretion on whether information like case reports or body camera footage is released. A Star investigation earlier this year found that most of the time, Kansas agencies deny requests to disclose records from fatal police encounters to the public.

In late April, The Star sent a Sunshine request to KCPD for their case file on the fatal shooting of Jon Anderton, and a request in June for the file on the fatal shooting of Amaree’ya Henderson.

Anderton, 50, was killed by an officer in February 2023. Henderson, 25, was killed about two months later. Both cases raised questions about the circumstances. Anderton’s family said he was running when an officer shot him in the back. An officer shot Henderson during a car stop. His family said he was unarmed.

Wyandotte County District Attorney Mark Dupree declined to file charges against the officers in both cases. His office has never charged a police officer in a fatal shooting stemming from on-duty conduct.

KCPD has not handed over the case files to The Star. But, according to the Unified Goverment’s lawsuit, the police department has indicated investigative materials the agency possesses must be disclosed, including video footage, in accordance with Missouri law.

In its legal argument, the Unified Government contends the use-of-force investigation records maintained by KCPD — including written reports and camera footage — are its property. The evidence was given to KCPD “on a temporary basis for the sole purpose of conducting an investigation and is not the property of Defendant,” the civil complaint says.

The Unified Government also alleges KCPD has “refused” to return the documents and videos “to which it has no right of ownership.”

Releasing the files to a third party, the argument continues, amounts to a breach of contract and would cause “irreparable harm.” People who might sue have recognized a “loophole” in the law, “either directly or through media proxies,” the Unified Government contends.

The Unified Government wants the court to find KCPD in violation of its contract agreement, restrain KCPD from releasing the investigative file to anyone and return all evidentiary materials to the Unified Government.

On Wednesday, Bernie Rhodes, an attorney for The Star, sent an email to KCPD’s Office of General Counsel inquiring about the delay on the records requests. The Unified Government filed its lawsuit a day later.

“To hide the facts behind an officer involved shooting is entirely contrary to the point of the First Amendment and the principles of a self-governed democracy,” Rhodes said.

The interstate agreement stipulates that requests made by the public will be disseminated “in accordance with the laws of the State of the agency holding the records.”

“The Missouri Sunshine Law could not be clearer that once an investigation is concluded, the records are open to the public,” Rhodes continued. “This 11th hour attempt to avoid the efforts of The Kansas City Star to serve the public interest by informing the public of how these citizens were shot and killed is simply wrong.”