Mayor Whipple says Wichita police body camera failed to capture officer yelling at him
Wichita Mayor Brandon Whipple is calling for a review of the city’s police body-camera policies after he said an officer failed to activate his camera when he yelled at the mayor and attempted to bar him from entering a city-sponsored neighborhood cleanup event.
When Wichita police Officer Atlee Vogt did turn on his camera, his demeanor changed from aggressive to calm, Whipple said.
“Now that I’ve seen the body-cam footage and understand more of what he was actually doing, I don’t think there’s any policing professional who would think that was appropriate,” Whipple said.
“I defend our officers when citizens complain because I’ve always been told if something happened, the body camera would show that,” Whipple said. “But this opened my eyes to a blind spot. I legitimately thought his camera was on the whole time.”
Vogt, a community police officer, would not comment. Lem Moore, who recently retired as interim police chief, said he has not seen the video. But he said he thought miscommunication was to blame. The officer has not been disciplined.
The encounter happened Sept. 24, but Whipple did not receive the body camera video until Tuesday. Whipple said he chose to release it himself so he could provide context that wasn’t captured on video. He said he worries it could be selectively edited to make it look like he abused his position as mayor for favorable treatment by police.
“I have a certain level of privilege that normal citizens don’t when it comes to telling what happened, and it’s just shocking to see — to realize firsthand — that other people probably went through what I did, and they don’t have any avenue to remedy that.”
The city of Wichita released additional video Thursday morning of two partial conversations between Vogt and a witness. It’s unclear from the video how long they talked or what was said before the officer activated his body camera during the witness interview.
The release of the videos comes as Wichita searches for a new police chief amid multiple problems within the department.
Whipple has been pushing for increased oversight of the Wichita Police Department since an Eagle investigation found a pattern of racist, sexist and homophobic attitudes among SWAT team members. He said he doesn’t think Vogt acted in retaliation.
“Look, we pay cops extra to not blow up on people,” Whipple said. “We actually pay them extra for that with code of conduct pay,” referring to $2 an hour commissioned officers receive for following police policies, as part of the Fraternal Order of Police contract. “So we should expect better.”
In the video, the officer and a city official question why Whipple, who lives in District 3, was trying to dump trash at a neighborhood cleanup site in District 4. The city’s neighborhood cleanup program is aimed at curbing illegal dumping in very low-to-moderate-income neighborhoods, offering free disposal of larger items such as mattresses and tires.
Whipple, whose annual salary is more than $100,000, said he planned to throw away mattresses and other large items he had cleared from a unoccupied rental home that he owns near the cleanup event.
“It’s not that I couldn’t afford to take it to the dump, but the event was happening on Saturday and I was clearing out my rental house that day,” Whipple said. “So it just made sense to drop this stuff off. That’s the whole point of these neighborhood cleanups. Another reason I was there was because I wanted to stop by and shake hands with volunteers and give out mayor’s coins to people helping out because I’ve helped organize these before, and I know how much work it is.”
A call to the city manager
The incident started when Whipple attempted to pull into the wrong driveway during the cleanup event at the Machinists Union near Meridian and I-235. Whipple was driving his beat-up red Ford Ranger, wearing a firefighters union T-shirt and smoking a cigar.
When Whipple pulled in, Vogt began yelling and acting aggressively toward him, telling him to turn around, Whipple said. The mayor then asked Vogt how to get into the event. Vogt told him he was “not welcome,” Whipple said.
The rest of the interaction is captured in a video that runs for 11 minutes and 26 seconds.
Whipple said he thinks the officer may have been trying to provoke him into responding to his aggression, which would have been caught on camera. Instead, Whipple called City Manager Robert Layton.
“Hey, I’m getting screamed at by one of your cops,” Whipple told Layton, body camera video shows. “Who’s the chief now?”
At the time, Moore was transitioning out of the role and new interim Chief Troy Livingston was taking over the department.
“I’ve got a guy who doesn’t know who I am, and he’s just screaming at me to turn around, incredibly rude, so I’m going to try to figure out how to report this,” Whipple said to Layton.
“You can file it directly to him (Moore) or you can file it with me,” Layton said.
“This guy just went nuts on me because I turned into a parking lot the wrong — yeah, he’s here right now,” Whipple said. “He’s writing down my ID and stuff. He has no idea who I am.”
“I know who you are, Mr. Mayor,” Vogt said. (Later in the video he acknowledges he didn’t initially recognize Whipple.)
“Officer, this is Bob Layton. I assume the mayor’s trying to get to an event,” Layton, who is on speakerphone, said to Vogt.
“Yes, sir,” Vogt said.
“And you’re there with the mayor right now,” Layton said.
“Yes, sir,” Vogt said.
“Can you let him pass?” Layton said.
“I mean, I’ll go to the back of the line,” Whipple said.
“I cannot, unfortunately,” Vogt said.
Layton asked for the officer’s name, said he would talk to Moore and then hung up the phone.
In the video, Vogt continues to question the mayor. He asks for Whipple’s phone number and then walks away with his driver’s license.
“Can I unload my stuff?” Whipple asks as Vogt walks away with his ID.
“Nope. We don’t have any dumpsters to unload it,” Vogt said. “They are all full.”
Vogt walked around in the video for 2 minutes and 18 seconds with Whipple’s ID until he found Rebecca Fields, community services representative for District 4, who was helping supervise the cleanup.
“I probably just got us all in a little hot water,” Vogt told her. “The mayor showed up and didn’t want to follow instructions to come in here. He’s already filed a complaint on me with the manager. I didn’t recognize him initially.”
“What?” Fields said.
“Well, I told him to turn around and leave, and he refused and said, ‘I need to ask you a question.’ I said, ‘No, you need to turn around and go back out,’ because he drove around our cars and came in here. I said, ‘No, you need to turn around,’ so now he told me, ‘this is because you’re being rude to me and you’re yelling at me.’ I said, ‘No, you need to turn around and leave.’ So he called Layton and filed a complaint on me because I’m rude, and he wants to know about if he can go ahead and dump his stuff, and I said ‘No, we don’t have a dumpster for you to dump your stuff.’”
As Vogt told Fields about the interaction, a new load of dumpsters pulled into the parking lot.
“This one just pulled in,” Vogt said, pointing to the dumpsters. “He mentioned to Layton that I didn’t know who he was because I didn’t initially recognize him, I was quite a ways away.”
“I can’t stand him,” Fields said. “Where’s he at now?”
“He’s right there in the red shirt. I told him also, when he refused to comply, I told him you’re no longer welcome, you need to leave,” Vogt said. “I’ve dictated that that’s the same way we’ve treated other people who have refused to comply with instructions. So if you want me to allow him to go ahead and bring his stuff up and dump or to tell him to leave. He said these are part of his rental properties, which are part of his businesses.”
“What?” Fields said.
“It’s what he also told the manager,” Vogt said.
“What?” she asked again.
“That’s what he said. I heard him tell the manager that, which would mean his stuff is not from his personal property.”
Whipple said he thinks he was eligible to use the neighborhood cleanup. He said he owned the property he was dumping and that he and his wife own the house it came from and are clearing it so his mother can move in. They don’t live in it.
Fields did not return a phone call Wednesday. In the video, she approaches Whipple with Vogt and questions why Whipple is at the cleanup.
“Did you get a mayor alert?” she said. “Because it’s only for the residential area.”
“Right. I’m in the area,” Whipple said.
“Why are you dumping for your rental?” she asked.
“No, no, like my property,” Whipple said.
“It’s for the residents,” Fields said.
“Right.”
“So it’s from your home?”
“Yes.”
Each neighborhood cleanup has slightly different rules, and it’s unclear whether Whipple was eligible to participate. He said he was. It’s also unclear whether anyone else had their eligibility challenged.
Vogt and Whipple parted on better terms, the video shows.
“I’m sorry that you felt that I was rude,” Vogt told Whipple. “I didn’t recognize you at first. The reason we’re so strict on the rules is because it gets ridiculous. And somebody else had followed you in, immediately, which is why it amplifies the problem. That’s why we try to redirect as quickly and as fast as we could.”
“No, I understand,” Whipple said. “I didn’t understand what was happening, and then yeah.”
“There it is, yes,” Vogt said.
Vogt then allowed Whipple to dump his trash.
Witness interview
Additional video clips released by the city Thursday show Vogt recorded a witness statement over pizza after the encounter with the mayor.
The videos show the officer and an unnamed witness talking for at least 30 seconds before the audio begins recording on the Axon body camera. It’s unclear how long they had been talking beforehand or whether Vogt interviewed any other witnesses.
The witness statement appears to confirm Whipple’s version of events — that he turned in the wrong entrance, the officer then became excited and then Whipple asked if he could ask him a question instead of leaving the event.
The witness went on to say Whipple failed to comply with the officer’s commands. He was also upset that Whipple called Layton to report Vogt, calling the move “chickensh—.”
“Do you mind if I just ask you to tell me what you saw,” Vogt asks.
“I just seen him pull up there and then I seen — was it you that went up there and talked to him? — and then, you know, he just kind of looked at you, you know. He didn’t do anything to defuse the situation. He just looked at you, and I know that you told him like two or three times and you were starting to get a little bit —”
“Stern,” Vogt interrupted.
“I understand that,” the witness said. “Yeah, and you kept telling him turn around and go back the other way.”
The witness said he thought Whipple was in the wrong.
“He just kept saying, ‘I’ve got a question, I’ve got a question,’ and he just looked at you, and it’s like, dude, you had to know where the end of the line was,” he said.
“I mean, Brandon, what did you do to help the situation out? You know, you have some responsibility, too.”
Whipple said he did the best he could to remain calm during the interaction.
“That idea — that it’s up to the public to de-escalate a situation that was initially escalated by one of our trained officers — that’s not the expectation we should have or the public should have.”
No formal complaint
Whipple said he spoke with Moore about the interaction, and they agreed the officer should not be disciplined or investigated.
“I thought it was a good opportunity to improve. Like, maybe this guy was just having a bad day,” Whipple said. “But the body camera shows there might be something a little darker going on.”
Whipple said he doesn’t want to file a formal complaint against Vogt because he thinks he learned his lesson. The bigger problem is the body camera policy that allows officers to activate the camera whenever they want to, Whipple said.
“I was led to believe that any time an officer is interacting with the public, the camera is on,” Whipple said. “This shows me that that can be manipulated by an officer in a way that doesn’t accurately document the encounter. That’s unacceptable.”
Moore, in a phone interview, said he hasn’t seen the body camera footage.
Moore said he didn’t speak to Vogt because Whipple told him he didn’t want to file a complaint but instead wished the officer had handled things better because he wanted him “to approach citizens better. I don’t want him to walk up yelling, or not yelling, but with a heightened voice.”
Moore said he told Vogt’s supervisor to speak with the officer. Vogt wasn’t disciplined, he said.
Moore figures the whole thing is a miscommunication, made worse by the officer having to deal with people annoyed after waiting in a long line.
“So I guarantee you there was a lot of aggression, a lot of frustration — from the citizens,” Moore said. “I’m thinking if I’m out there working, I have to be stern. . . . Police are there to be direct and sometimes it comes off as being stern. I just think it is a miscommunication, a difference of personality.”
Whipple said he disagrees.
“This isn’t how our police department should treat people,” Whipple said. “I usually get treated better because of who I am, and this time I got a taste of how they treat people who they don’t see to have value, and that was the issue: You don’t treat anyone like this.”
