Wichita promises to change ‘cultural DNA’ of police department after sobering report

Wichita officials say they plan to follow a road map for the Wichita Police Department laid out by Jensen Hughes, a national police consulting firm that issued a hold-no-punches report on the city’s police culture.

The Jensen Hughes report exposed problems with WPD policies and practices that create public distrust — and recommended a renegotiation of the city’s agreement with the Fraternal Order of Police. It also offered recommendations on how to fix a cop culture described in the report as “at times toxic.”

“This extremely well-written and well-researched report actually confirms my own personal assessment of various facets of the department in my short time here in Wichita,” Chief Joseph Sullivan said, promising that he and his command staff are committed to seeing its findings translated into tangible changes.

The city released the final report — based largely on surveys and interviews with law enforcement officers and a review of city documents — late Friday afternoon, minutes after receiving it from Jensen Hughes, and held a news conference Monday morning. It was the culmination of months of research into the department.

“I don’t think there’s a single recommendation in there that I disagree with,” City Manager Robert Layton said.

Mayor Brandon Whipple said the city will use the report to “move forward to create the best police department in the Midwest.”

The City Council and City Manager Robert Layton have placed an increased focus on reforming the police department since a March 2022 Eagle investigation uncovered the city’s mishandling of an investigation into officers who sent text messages that were racist, sexist, homophobic and celebratory of violence against civilians.

The Eagle investigation resulted in a city committee review that blamed deputy chiefs and former Chief Gordon Ramsay for not disciplining the officers and failing to disclose potential credibility issues to state and federal prosecutors. The City Council quickly moved to lift a gag order on the Citizens Review Board, which issued a lengthy report on the text messages and also called for a third-party assessment.

Additional calls for reform, including to the promotional process, surfaced after Eagle reporting found former interim Chief Lem Moore promoted Justin Rapp, who shot and killed unarmed Andrew Finch in 2017, to detective despite an active federal lawsuit and comments made by Rapp to fellow officers in the aftermath of the Finch killing that “damages the public trust and confidence and shows lack of sound judgment,” according to a letter from 2020, when he was skipped for promotion.

The City Council approved a contract with Jensen Hughes in August.

Jensen Hughes’ law enforcement consulting practice is headed up by Robert Davis, a 30-year veteran of the San Jose Police Department who spent seven years as chief.

Davis told reporters Monday that for Wichita to change the “cultural DNA of the agency” based on his firm’s report, the “overwhelming majority” of recommendations must be fully implemented.

“The key is that they take those recommendations and turn them into quantifiable things so that they’re measurable objectives,” Davis said. “What we see for example is some cities will take the report and use it as a strategic roadmap — some of them will actually use it to create a written five-year strategic plan.”

Other cities, he said, will break recommendations into categories and create committees charged with turning them into measurable objectives and put time frames to their implementation.

Layton said he plans to create an online dashboard as an accountability mechanism for members of the public to track the progress of recommendations as they are implemented.

“The chief, Jensen Hughes and I will spend some time talking about what they perceive as some of the top priorities, what the chief sees as the top priorities, and we’ll try then to assign timetables and responsible parties for that in the dashboard,” Layton said.

Edward Denmark of Jensen Hughes, who visited Wichita to conduct interviews during the firm’s review, said such a dashboard shouldn’t be mistaken for “a checklist of things — if we do A, check it off, we’re finished. If we do B, check it off, we’re finished.”

“Yes, we need to put processes in place and make policy changes, but there needs to be an ongoing, consistent monitoring of how those policies and processes are impacting the overall vision and mission of the agency moving forward,” Denmark said.

Surveyed officers described the Wichita Police Department as “broken,” “dysfunctional” and “horrible.” The department also has problems with accountability and oversight, Jensen Hughes found, leading to a perception that internal investigations are weaponized against officers who aren’t in the “in crowd.”

The police union contract also includes provisions that lead to public distrust. It allows officers accused of wrongdoing to review all of the evidence before they are questioned, allowing them to “construct a story that may discredit or nullify any of the evidence.” They may also trade in vacation time and bonuses to cancel-out suspensions.

Another problem identified by Jensen Hughes is crime victims and witnesses left waiting days to talk because detectives work only daytime hours during the week. The report recommends assigning night detectives to address the lag time, which “erodes public confidence, hinders cooperation during investigations and reduces investigative efficiency.”

Jensen Hughes found the department generally lacks direction and, although WPD has touted its commitment to “community policing” for decades, it fails to define what community policing is or means. The department has assigned community police officers, but they rarely respond to calls for service, the report says.

“Without a plan, there is no consensus on what community policing is, how it should be implemented, who is responsible for it or how outcomes should be measured.”