Police commissioners will pick next Kansas City chief. Here’s what they are looking for

Missouri law lays out in general language the qualifications the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners will need to consider as it weeds through candidates in its quest to hire the city’s next police chief.

Among those qualifications, initially written in 1939, is being under 60 years old at the time of their appointment, being a U.S. citizen, having at least five years police experience and being certified by a surgeon or physician to be in good physical condition.

“I don’t think we asked for that,” said Lisa Pelofsky, a former police board president, who served from 2010 to 2014. “I don’t remember us looking at anybody’s medical records. I don’t think that you can do that anymore.”

Yet, nearly every one of the city’s past police chiefs has come from inside the department and the required physical examinations are part of their application process to become police officers.

Instead, Pelofsky and other former police commissioners told The Star the qualifications they valued the most were someone who had extensive police experience, free of scandal, broad community connections and possessed the leadership skills to oversee a 1,500-member police force.

In the coming weeks commissioners will likely use the provisions of section 84.420 to guide them through the chief selection process.

In April, the board appointed Joseph Mabin as the city’s interim chief after Rick Smith announced that he would retire after serving nearly five years.

Missouri law requires that the city’s police chief is appointed and serves at the pleasure of the five-member board of police commissioners; four of its members are appointed by the governor.

In addition, the provision calls for the police board to choose a chief based on the candidate’s executive and administrative acumen and demonstrated knowledge of police science.

Stacey Daniels-Young, who served on the police board from 1995 to 2005, said in selecting the next police chief, commissioners will need to go far beyond those generalities and examine the essential leadership needs of the department.

“This is a difficult time in this city — relationships with the community will need to be rebuilt, and what different parts of the city want are different,” she said.

“And, of course, what’s really most important is getting a handle on crime reduction. What’s the approach to a philosophy of policing that can reduce crime while improving the response to crime?”

Smith, who was appointed to fill the role in August 2017, oversaw a police force beset by controversies for its handling of excessive use of force, the killing of Black men by police and the city’s soaring homicide rate.

Daniels-Young said lawsuits and ongoing media reports have revealed real problems in the department that will have to be addressed, “and it will take a special person to want to confront that,” she said.

The next chief needs to be transparent, focused on building community trust and have a clear, well-articulated crime-fighting strategy, according to residents who participated in a series of recent listening sessions.

When Darryl Forté was hired in 2011, the commissioners focused on four different areas: demonstrated leadership, a well-developed strategic plan for the department, deep relationships with the community, and accomplished law enforcement credentials, said Patrick McInerney, who served on the police board from 2009 to 2013.

In the past, commissioners also looked at the citizen complaints filed against the police chief finalists. That enabled commissioners to eliminate candidates who had numerous complaints in their police file.

Also important: that candidates worked in a diversity of offices so they understood the different units at the police department. Finalists who had previously worked as deputy chiefs who supervised the patrol division bureau generally had an advantage over the finalists who did not have that work experience.

“When you’re the deputy chief of the patrol bureau, you have basically half of the department reporting to you,” Pelofsky said. “So it’s really important to know that the applicant has oversight of all of these different units because it is significant in how many people you had to manage, it was a big operation and you had to collaborate with other units.”