Consultant’s report on Wichita police department to be released online soon, city says

Jensen Hughes, a top law enforcement consulting firm in the U.S., is expected to issue its report suggesting reforms to the Wichita Police Department next month.

City officials say that analysis will be published online in its entirety.

The report, which will investigate the breadth and depth of bias within the police force, focusing on racism, officer discipline, public oversight and violent interactions with civilians, is on track to be finalized sometime in February.

“I do not have a date yet for the final report that we will receive in February but it will be posted on the website,” city spokesperson Megan Lovely told The Eagle.

Jensen Hughes issued sobering reports to the cities of Louisville and Minneapolis after the police killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, and was selected from a pool of nine candidates to audit WPD and issue a cultural assessment of the department after an Eagle investigation found little was initially done to discipline SWAT officers involved in the sending of racist and inappropriate text messages.

At the time of the firm’s most recent update on the city website in December, Jensen Hughes had completed 56 one-on-one interviews with WPD personnel and 420 of 628 department employees had responded to an email survey.

The Chicago-based firm, which is being paid an estimated $214,000, says it has reviewed 10GB of documents and data, including policies, reports, organizational charts, budgets, standard operating procedures and complaints against department members.

Jensen Hughes investigators visited Wichita on Jan. 9 to conduct more interviews and discuss communication between the city manager’s office, city legal and the HR department.

The scope of the cultural assessment was broadened to examine the disconnect between police leadership and various city departments after interim Chief Lem Moore promoted an officer who is being sued for killing an unarmed civilian.

The report will also determine whether the Fraternal Order of Police has undue influence on officer discipline — an accusation leveled in a threatened lawsuit filed on behalf of former Police Chief Gordon Ramsay and his deputy chiefs, who say City Manager Robert Layton, the city HR director and police union leadership repeatedly lied about and subverted efforts to address the “abhorrent subculture” of “a small cabal of some SWAT members and officers” in the department.

Layton has denied the accusations of corruption and obstruction made by Ramsay’s executive team.

Mayor Brandon Whipple said at a City Council meeting last month that a first draft of the cultural assessment will be sent to Assistant City Manager Donte Martin for “non-substantive technical amendments.”

“Some police departments might refer to something as a bureau while other people refer to it as a precinct, so it’s to make sure that we’re using the same language,” Whipple said. All changes made to the document must be approved by the researchers, he said.

Whipple has said the Jensen Hughes report will serve as a “road map” for the new police chief. Chief Joe Sullivan, who was hired in October and previously served as a leader in the Philadelphia Police Department, did not immediately respond to a request to comment for this story Tuesday.