Wichita City Council is getting serious about handling of police misconduct | Opinion
Wichita Mayor Brandon Whipple may be coloring outside City Hall’s usual lines by appointing a police oversight task force, but it’s the right thing to do and the right time to do it.
The police department’s ongoing series of problems — while operating on its second interim chief in a row — run too deep for business as usual.
And it’s a positive sign that the mayor, along with council members Jeff Blubaugh and Mike Hoheisel, are willing to step up and provide some leadership at the elected level to help get things sorted out — even if they ruffle some feathers along the way.
In ordinary times, the default position is to let the city manager handle the administrative functions while the council sets big-picture policies.
But these are not ordinary times.
Three deputy chiefs, two current and one former, have filed the precursor of a lawsuit. It claims that Human Resources Director Chris Bezruki, with the support of City Manager Bob Layton, improperly blocked efforts to discipline officer misconduct, including overturning the demotion of a sergeant who “slapped the ass” of a female officer in restraints during a training exercise.
The deputy chiefs also allege they were retaliated against for standing their ground in the interdepartmental dispute and are demanding the resignations of Layton and Bezruki, meaning this case can’t be handled through usual channels without becoming a conflict of interest.
The city is still slogging through other major issues, including racist, homophobic and borderline sociopathic text messages and memes swapped by members of the SWAT team, the in-custody death of 17-year-old Cedric “CJ” Lofton and the “swatting” death of Andrew Finch, an innocent man killed by police after a serial hoaxer called in a fake hostage situation.
Plus, a recent audit found critical evidence is missing from the police property room in dozens of cases, including murders and rapes.
The city charter vests the manager with broad authority over operations — a throwback to when council members served as part-time, more-or-less volunteer city leaders.
But the charter also says the council has the final authority, and we can expect more from members now paid $49,000 and a mayor paid $113,000 a year.
Which brings us back to Whipple and his task force.
Because of the specific allegations in the deputy chiefs’ complaint, Layton must step aside and let someone else do the heavy lifting on at least that front.
The task force is meeting weekly after the council’s regular meeting, and is requesting documents and information from staff including:
▪ WPD heirarchy and relationship to other departments both inside and outside City Hall
▪ Details on the current whistleblower system at City Hall
▪ Fraternal Order of Police grievances for the last 10 years
▪ Reporting procedures between the city attorney’s and the city manager’s offices
That’s a good start.
The task force is also poised to provide oversight on an audit of the police department by Jensen Hughes, a highly respected national consulting firm hired by Layton.
But Whipple does need to mend some fences with other council members who aren’t on the task force.
At last week’s agenda review meeting, council member Becky Tuttle said she didn’t even know the task force had been formed, and Bryan Frye questioned why it would meet weekly but only report to the rest of the council every two weeks.
Those are valid concerns and it’s going to be up to Whipple to ensure that all members of the council are kept in the loop. So far, he seems willing to.
He’s agreed that any documents received by the task force will be provided to all council members at the same time and to give weekly reports at the Friday agenda meeting.
There are bound to be hiccups. It’s exceedingly rare for Wichita City Council members to take this direct a role in department operations.
But to those saying the council needs to stay in their lane, I’ll say this: This is their lane. They just haven’t been in it in a while.
