Roger Golubski might finally see justice. Now fix the KCK system that protected him

It’s about time. The handcuffs on former Kansas City, Kansas, police detective Roger Golubski, arrested by the FBI at his home Thursday morning, are proof that someone in authority has finally heard the credible complaints by women who say the former officer used the power of his badge to terrorize them for years.

The arrest, and the indictment on six federal counts made public later Thursday morning, are important steps in seeing justice through.

Now, the U.S. Department of Justice must follow up with an investigation of the police department where he worked with such impunity for so long. How could a pattern of behavior — documented by credible allegations again and again — have been allowed to develop under the noses of police and city leaders?

Federal officials must conduct a pattern and practice investigation into alleged police corruption in KCK. The allegations against Golubski, after all, raise questions not just about his own behavior, but also about the system in which he operated for decades, a system that appears to have turned a blind eye to repeated allegations of official misconduct of the worst kind.

To launch a civil rights investigation, the U.S. attorney’s office can convene a federal grand jury and request assistance from local federal authorities and the Justice Department in Washington. It should. We need to know who condoned and encouraged Golubski’s behavior on the job, if other officers were involved, and if they remain in law enforcement.

Of course Golubski, who retired from KCKPD after a 35-year career in 2010, remains innocent until proven otherwise. But the feds accuse him of “willfully” depriving the women of their rights. Among the allegations, according to court documents: aggravated sexual abuse, sexual assault and kidnapping.

It was alleged in court documents that Golubski ordered a woman to perform oral sex on him in his vehicle. And that wasn’t the only time he used his car to commit a crime, the feds alleged in legal filings in the U.S. District Court of Kansas.

A series of columns by former Star Editorial Board member Melinda Henneberger shed light on damning allegations against the former cop. Through Henneberger’s Pulitzer-Prize winning reporting, we learned that Golubski had been accused by multiple women of allegedly setting up poor Black men and raping, stalking and threatening poor Black women.

One of the women Henneberger interviewed detailed the tactics Gobluski used to keep her alleged sexual assault quiet. The former detective threatened to kill the woman, she said. Worse, Gobluski allegedly told the woman that if she reported him, he would bring harm to her brother.

Local activists, attorneys and other community groups begged and pleaded for somebody — anybody — with legal authority to look into allegations that Golubski was terrorizing Black residents of Wyandotte County. High-ranking officials surely knew of Golubski’s alleged misconduct, right?

The public plea for accountability caught the attention of Team Roc, the social justice arm of rapper Jay-Z’s Roc Nation, which took out ads in major publications calling on the Justice Department to investigate the KCK police department.

If Golubski is guilty of these charges, it will likely require a far-reaching review of every criminal conviction in which his police work played a role. Violet Martin told us Thursday that the incarceration of her brother and cousin were tainted by egregious actions by Golubski, and were unjust.

“It took over three decades, 30 years of this man living like he is a law-abiding citizen,” Martin, of Kansas City, Kansas, said. In reality, Martin said she believes Golubski is “one of the biggest criminals we have in Wyandotte County.”

Behind every accusation of sexual assault, sexual abuse or kidnapping is a human caught up in a tragedy, only compounded by the fact that the crimes they allege were made possible by the respect and power we entrust to police officers. As complaints about Golubski were aired, and as news reporters and members of this editorial board added details that called out for a formal investigation, local police officials seemed to sit on their hands.

Only now, with the intervention of the federal government, are the allegations finally going to be given the attention they deserve. That federal scrutiny must continue and broaden to understand not just whether Golubski is guilty of the crimes of which he’s accused, but how the department itself could have failed to respond to so many allegations over so many years.

Golubski will have his day in court. But the many calls for justice in this case demand that he’s not the only official in Kansas City, Kansas, whose behavior over the past three decades comes under scrutiny.