Wichita council member accuses police leaders of extortion, calls on them to resign

A Wichita City Council member called on two deputy chiefs to resign from the police department Tuesday after they accused the city manager, human resources director and interim police chief of colluding with the police union to shield officers from discipline.

Deputy chiefs Chet Pinkston and Jose Salcido — with former Deputy Chief Wanda Givens — sent a legal letter to the city yesterday threatening to sue unless the city met a list of demands. They asked for a payout of more than $2.1 million, resignations by City Manager Robert Layton and Human Resources Director Chris Bezruki and a public apology from the city.

Layton said he is not going to resign and called the letter inaccurate and outrageous.

Wichita City Council member Bryan Frye, in a brief speech from the bench Tuesday, accused the two Wichita Police Department leaders of extortion and requested they step down.

“The definition of extortion: the practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats,” Frye said. “It’s mindblowing that two current deputy chiefs of the Wichita Police Department have resorted to this tactic. Deputy chiefs Salcido and Pinkston should resign immediately.”

Frye’s speech prompted a warning from Mayor Brandon Whipple.

“I remind members that we have a firewall up in our ordinance and we are not to influence the hiring or firing or disciplinary action of employees,” Whipple said. “We have to go through the city manager for that. But all opinions are welcome.”

The letter claims the deputy chiefs have tried to clean up the department but were hindered by Layton, Bezruki and the Fraternal Order of Police. It says Bezruki gave favorable treatment to the Fraternal Order of Police, overturned police leadership’s disciplinary decisions and allowed the police union to interfere in investigations of police shootings.

The cases at issue include accusations of cover-ups, interference and slaps on the wrist for sexual harassment, fleeing the scene of an accident and killing civilians.

Layton said an investigation into Bezruki did not find any inappropriate relationship or gifts from the Fraternal Order of Police. “And we asked for evidence that would help us review that, and we have not been able to obtain that.”

The string of accusations in the legal letter, based on incidents from up to five years ago, came in response to criticism of the deputy chiefs’ leadership in a recent city report.

Former Chief Gordon Ramsay’s executive team — Pinkston, Salcido and Givens — failed to discipline officers who sent and received racist, sexist and homophobic text messages that glorified police brutality first reported by The Eagle in March. A City Manager’s Office committee report found Ramsay, Pinkston and Salcido mishandled an internal investigation and resulting discipline.

Instead of disciplining the officers, Wichita police leadership gave them non-disciplinary coaching and mentoring and failed to report the troubling information to federal and state prosecutors, as is required under federal law to ensure defendants get a fair trial, the report says.

The report, based partially on interviews with Pinkston and Salcido, found Ramsay and his deputy chiefs “failed to exercise leadership at a critical time and adequately address the officer misconduct while making a strong clear statement that behavior of this type will not be tolerated,” the report says.

“Statements made by the Deputy Chiefs (Pinkston and Salcido) to the Committee exhibit a lack of clear understanding of the impact that the officers’ misconduct has on the community, WPD and the City of Wichita and seemingly excuse the officers’ actions,” the report said.

Further, the report directed interim Chief Lem Moore to “make a determination on the Deputy Chiefs’ (Pinkston and Salcido) competency to continue serving in their current roles and their contribution to a lacking culture of accountability and leadership.”

Ramsay’s executive team says in the letter that they didn’t discipline the officers because they “wanted to avoid the humiliation” of being undermined by the city’s human resources manager, who had signaled to them that he believed it would be a violation of the First Amendment to discipline the officers for private text messages.

The demand letter said Pinkston and Salcido are being treated as scapegoats and claimed Layton is trying to purge the department of Ramsay’s leadership team to replace them with “more pliable” leaders who are more “willing to look the other way.”

In another section of the letter, the deputy chiefs question the hiring of Troy Livingston, who was named interim chief by Layton last week. Livingston served as a deputy chief under Ramsay until 2019, when he retired. The letter accuses him of conspiring with the police union and Bezruki to rehire an officer Ramsay had fired in 2017 after the officers fled the scene of an accident.

It also accuses him of being pushed out because of “poor performance” and having to be physically escorted out of City Hall. Layton told The Eagle that Livingston received “very positive” evaluations for his performance under Ramsay and disputes that he was physically escorted out the building.

Livingston has not responded to a request for comment.