New police union contract up for negotiation in Kansas City

After he fatally shot an unarmed Black man in May 2019, Kansas City police officer Dylan Pifer was escorted by a sergeant and his union representative to police headquarters downtown to make a statement.

In an interview room on the seventh floor, Pifer told two detectives that in the early morning hours, he shot 30-year-old Terrance Bridges Jr. because he thought he was pulling a gun out of a sweatshirt pocket. The men were standing about two feet apart, he said.

“I was scared for my life,” he said.

Before Pifer made that statement, he was allowed to wait about 35 hours, during which time he and his attorney with the Fraternal Order of Police were able to listen to audio and watch video that came from his patrol vehicle, which captured parts of the shooting, according to internal police reports.

That audio records a gunshot before Pifer asks Bridges, “Why’d you attack me, dude?”

“I didn’t attack you,” Bridges answers. He was suffering from a gunshot wound to the chest and later died. Pifer was not charged in the shooting.

Pifer’s ability to wait up to 48 hours before providing a formal statement is one of several privileges extended to local officers represented by the union.

It’s one of the most controversial provisions of the current contract between the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners and the local chapter of the union representing rank-and-file officers. With the contract up for renegotiation in the coming weeks, activists and community leaders have said the 48-hour rule should be removed.

“It benefits the officers because they’re given a 48-hour time period to review evidence from the scene and speak to whoever they want prior to giving a statement about their actions,” said attorney Tom Porto, who represents Bridges’ mother and his two minor sons in a wrongful death lawsuit against Pifer. “Officers are allowed to speak with fellow officers who were at the scene that night, their sergeant, their police chief, the FOP and their FOP attorney prior to giving a statement about their actions.”

In addition to what is known as the 48-hour rule, officers can review evidence prior to giving a statement to investigators, and their attorneys are allowed access to crime scenes.

Amid national calls this summer for criminal justice reform, police union contracts — especially the 48-hour provision — have come under increased scrutiny. Across the country, The Associated Press found, such contracts have provided protections that have stood in the way of accountability.

While most residents are likely unaware of the 48-hour provision, some of the city’s most vocal police critics say it must change as the police department and union negotiate the next contract. Those negotiations typically occur behind closed doors.

Activist Sheryl Ferguson, who in recent months led the group It’s Time 4 Justice in protests outside police board meetings, has publicly called on the board to allow the public to be part of the negotiations.

She said Black residents especially should be heard.

“Not only should regular citizens have a voice, it should also include a demographic that are more policed by the police so the areas that have a higher incidence of interaction are able to review what policies they have,” she said.

Ferguson and other activists want changes in the contract, including repealing the 48-hour rule, not giving officers accused of misconduct full access to evidence before they make a statement and adding drug testing after shootings.

Jackson County’s top law enforcement officials say they have their own concerns about the union’s culture and its role in blocking the public from getting accountability from police.

Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker’s office called it “indefensible” to allow only officers to enjoy the 48-hour rule, and Baker said the union negotiations should be conducted with more public scrutiny.

“The community who pays for this police department should have a role in knowing what is in that FOP contract,” Baker said. “The FOP contract should be negotiated more out in the open in the daylight so that community members can also weigh in.”

Darryl Forté, who previously served as Kansas City police chief before he was elected Jackson County sheriff, said he is concerned about the union especially because he investigated FOP President Brad Lemon years ago on allegations that Lemon falsified and improperly self-approved his own police reports. The investigation seemed to stall after Forté left the department.

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said he has met with activists and heard their concerns about the police union contract. He said he shared the concerns with the attorneys handling the negotiations.

“I’m always interested in sharing as much public information as practicable, and in gathering community input on all matters related to building police-community trust,” Lucas wrote in an email.

Any efforts to change the Kansas City Police Department will have to contend not only with the union contract but also the police board itself, whose members are appointed by the governor.

Capt. David Jackson, a department spokesman, said he understood people have had bad encounters with police.

“The protests and everything else, I get that the police have a lot of skin in this game and that the police can improve and make improvements,” he said. “I understand, I do not dismiss that.”

Attempts to directly reach Police Chief Rick Smith for comment on this story were not successful.

“To ensure fairness for all sides, the Chief doesn’t have any specifics to discuss at this time,” Donna Drake, a police spokeswoman, wrote in an email of the union contract negotiations. “Negotiations are ongoing between the Board and the FOP. Any changes made to the [union contract] will, of course, be made public in the updated Department Memorandum.”

If the current police union contract expires, the provisions stay in place until a new contract is negotiated at the end of January.

The 48-hour rule

Having delays in police officer interrogation is a common union contract provision nationwide that many civilians should be aware of, but may not be, said Liana Perez, director of operations for the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement.

It is one of many provisions that the national police accountability nonprofit Campaign Zero says should be removed.

The current Kansas City police union contract says an officer being investigated in a shooting is given up to 48 hours before making a statement to investigators. They get two working days to complete reports on other use of force incidents.

For disciplinary investigations, officers are given 24 hours to obtain a lawyer and 48 hours to make a statement. Under the contract, the officer may access police reports and video from the incident unless an investigator objects.

Mike Mansur, spokesman for the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office, said that protection was unfair when it is only provided to officers and not civilians.

“Prosecutors want a system that is fair to all,” he said in an email. “We stand between the community (and the harmed victim) and the police department (often investigating one of its own). Standing in that tenuous position, I simply want an investigator who seeks the truth from a neutral position.”

Lemon, the Kansas City FOP president, said the 48-hour rule helps officers’ memory. The union wants fair investigations, he said.

“The rest allows them to accurately recall the events of the incident,” Lemon said in an email.

Across the country, police unions have said officers should be allowed to take at least two sleep cycles before giving statements because stress from traumatic events can affect their memory.

But a review of psychological research “finds no support for this argument,” Samuel Walker, an emeritus professor in criminology at the University of Nebraska Omaha, wrote in a 2015 report.

“Some studies, in fact, have found that stress actually enhances memory,” Walker wrote.

Walker noted that such delays are not extended to suspects, witnesses or victims of crime.

“Even if the science behind waiting periods for police officers was valid,” he wrote, “police unions and their advocates apply waiting periods in an inconsistent, hypocritical, and self-serving manner.”

The Justice Department, in cities where it has entered into consent decrees designed to reform troubled police departments, has required independent investigators to take statements from officers as quickly as possible, often at the scene. The KCPD is not under a consent decree.

Dozens of other cities, including Chicago and Houston, also delay interrogations of officers “by some substantial period of time,” Stephen Rushin, a Loyola University Chicago associate law professor, wrote in 2017 in the Duke Law Journal.

“Most experienced police officers would balk at such hindrances on their ability to interrogate criminal suspects,” Rushin wrote. “They might understandably tell you that such limitations would make it unreasonably difficult to elicit incriminating statements from suspects.”

The KCPD announced in June that for the foreseeable future, police shootings would be investigated by the Missouri State Highway Patrol. In December, as the union contract negotiations were underway, patrol spokesman Sgt. Andrew Bell said he was not sure whether the 48-hour rule was binding on the state agency’s investigations.

In Kansas City, officers involved in major incidents are also allowed to have their representative or attorney within the crime scene, according to department policy.

Criminal defense attorney Dan Ross said that provides no benefit to the public. A lawyer, he said, has no legitimate purpose at a secured crime scene.

“It improperly allows for the attorney’s interaction with investigators at the scene, which could alter a fair investigation,” Ross said. “I believe it taints the scene and the sole purpose is to allow the attorney insight to the crime scene to formulate defenses.”

After a police shooting, it’s been the FOP’s practice to have officers invoke their rights under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to remain silent, according to a 2019 training slideshow used by the Kansas City Police Department.

The 104-page presentation, which was recently obtained by The Star, says the shooting officer at the scene can be asked 12 questions approved by the FOP.

Those questions include what direction the officer fired their weapon, if there are any suspects at large and what crimes the suspects are wanted for.

The slideshow advises department members who are assigned to sit with officers after shootings to not engage in detailed conversation about it. They are told to mute the mics on their recording devices and face their police cars away from the scene if a body is in view.

“They will be making calls to FOP and spouses and family. They may be in an excited state and hyperverbal,” the training suggested of the involved officer, adding on the next slide: “Turn off your police radio and walkie.”

In an email, Sgt. Jacob Becchina, a police spokesman, said police radios are turned off because investigators want just the officer’s memory of a shooting, not “a mashup” that might include overheard statements.

Becchina said the only car asked to face away from a scene is the one holding the shooting officer, so they do not see something that would influence their recollection.

“Taking a life is a possible part of the occupation that officers hope they never have to experience,” Becchina said. “Some officers never fully recover from these incidents emotionally, some leave the profession altogether.”

In general, Kansas City police have enjoyed more robust protections from investigation or discipline than other agencies across the country. In 2017, the local police union contract met four criteria identified in the Duke Law Journal as barriers to accountability, including provisions that delay officer interviews after shootings, provide access to evidence before the interview, limit anonymous complaints and restrict civilian oversight.

In other categories, the Kansas City union contract did not include barriers found in other cities that limit consideration of disciplinary history, put time limits on investigations of officers, and put investigations into the hands of arbitrators.

As a state-controlled police department, some of the protections that would normally fall under a police collective bargaining agreement are enshrined in state statute.

Asked for comment on the 48-hour rule and the union contract, a police board member referred the question to an attorney representing the board in the negotiations.

Bill Martucci, a partner at the Shook, Hardy & Bacon law firm, said in an email that discussions with the union were in their early stages.

“The discussions have been constructive and ideas have been exchanged,” he said. “A variety of constituencies and the public interest are at the heart of the effort to have focused, effective discussions. By the nature of the labor negotiations process, the discussions are confidential and ongoing.”

Concerns about the culture

Among Baker and Forté’s concerns about the police union is the backlash each has received in response to accountability efforts or comments critical of police culture.

In June, prosecutors obtained a grand jury indictment against KCPD detective Eric DeValkenaere, charging him with involuntary manslaughter and armed criminal action in the 2019 shooting death of Cameron Lamb.

Two months later, Lemon signed a post on the Kansas City FOP Facebook page attacking Baker.

“SHE IS JUST ANOTHER SELF-CENTERED POLITICIAN WHO IS WILLING TO PUT A DECORATED OFFICER AND HIS FAMILY THROUGH HELL FOR HER OWN POLITICAL GAIN,” the post read in part.

The post received more than 130 comments and 1,800 shares.

Baker soon received threats to herself and her family, and temporarily moved out of her home. Forté stationed a patrol car outside of her house. At crime scenes, police turned their back on Baker.

Mansur said Baker wasn’t accusing the Kansas City FOP of actually carrying out those actions. But he said the union’s rhetoric encouraged it.

“It’s kind of like hate speech, who hears it and who acts on it,” he said.

Lemon did not respond to a request for comment about the threats against Baker.

Forté also, as police chief and later as sheriff, has had conflict with the union.

In 2016, when Forté was chief, he faced criticism from Lemon and the Kansas City, Kansas FOP for saying in an interview with The Star that unreasonable fear of Black men was a factor in police shootings.

Forté’s concerns about the culture of the FOP also exist on the statewide level. This year, he accused Rick Inglima, a Lee’s Summit police officer and head of the state chapter of the FOP in Missouri, of calling George Floyd a “piece of shit” during a meeting in July.

Forté said he wasn’t at the meeting but heard about it from multiple law enforcement personnel.

Inglima did not respond to a request for comment about the accusation. Missouri FOP spokesperson Jane Dueker denied the allegations in a statement, noting that Forté sought but did not get the endorsement of the West Central Missouri Regional Lodge during the 2020 primary for sheriff.

“It is reprehensible that Sheriff Forté is willing to gratuitously generate racial tension and division for political revenge and to cover for his own failed leadership,” the statement said.

The Lee’s Summit Police Department said it was aware of an alleged comment but had not found enough evidence to pursue an investigation.

To Forté, the allegation fit with an overall pattern of local police culture that is hostile to Black people.

“The treatment, the racial slurs, it’s real, people want to deny it,” he said.

Forté said he believes in the right of employees to engage in collective bargaining through the union. But he doesn’t believe in the current police union leadership’s ability to rise to a moment that requires a different way of thinking.

Forté saw one example of how hard it can be to hold union members accountable when he investigated the Kansas City FOP president in 2017.

Investigation

Forté was at a homicide scene on Prospect Avenue in 2016 when local resident Thomas Simmons approached him and told him his story.

He later supplied Forté with documents supporting his allegations that Lemon, then a supervisor in the Metro Property Crimes Division, had falsified police reports when he arrested Simmons on a burglary case seven years earlier.

Simmons was alleging that the individual identified in surveillance reports was not him. He also showed Forté police reports from the case that were signed and self-approved by Lemon. The reports were signed and dated weeks after he wrote them.

When Simmons approached Forté, he had been showing these documents and telling people about Lemon’s actions for years. He explained that, though he was not guilty in the burglary case, he had taken a plea to avoid the long prison term he would face because of a prior conviction. He was released from prison in 2013.

In October 2016, The Call, Kansas City’s historic Black newspaper, reported on the story. But no other media outlets picked up on it.

Forté, in an interview this fall, said Lemon’s signing of the reports was contrary to police protocol and that he hadn’t seen such a practice in his 30-plus years in law enforcement. The correct protocol would be to have another supervisor approve the reports and sign off on them within days.

Forté investigated the allegations against Lemon in 2017. In question were four police reports that Lemon self-approved. Investigators also questioned Lemon about whether he gave inconsistent testimony as to whether he had permission from his chain of command to self-approve the reports.

Documents from Forté’s investigation show that under questioning from the Internal Affairs Unit, Lemon claimed that he had permission to self-sign police reports under the authority of a memorandum written by the police chief in 2009, Jim Corwin.

In response to a December public records request from The Star, a police spokesperson said release of the document was under legal review.

The investigation also raised questions about whether Lemon had an intimate relationship with the prosecuting attorney in Simmons’ case, Dawn Parsons, who used Lemon’s reports as part of her case against Simmons.

An excerpt from a record of Lemon’s interview by an investigator shows he was asked: “In 2009, during the investigation and trial of Thomas Simmons Jr., did you have a personal relationship with Dawn Parsons?”

“No, I didn’t,” Lemon answered, according to the record. “Well, we were friends.”

Parsons, by the time of Forté’s 2017 investigation, was working at a law firm for Leland Shurin, a police board member whose term expired in 2019. By 2020, Parsons was defending DeValkenaere in his manslaughter case in Jackson County.

In April 2017, internal affairs documents showed Forté concluded Lemon had violated policy, purposely misled investigators and made statements inconsistent with the sworn testimony used to prosecute Simmons.

Forté noted in the documents that, in sworn testimony during Simmons’ case, Lemon had led the court to believe his reports were approved by someone other than him.

Lemon made mention in his court testimony that police reports go through a review, but did not say who reviewed his reports and made no mention of the memorandum giving him permission to self-approve, Forté wrote.

Jackson, a police spokesman, said there was no policy prohibiting supervisors from signing their own reports.

But Forté, in his analysis of the investigation, concluded the “policy’s intent was for another party to review and approve the report other than the author.”

Forté said self-approving reports was untrustworthy and an example of a police practice that could damage community relations.

“Just the appearance of impropriety, if an incident occurs today and you write your own report days later and you signed your own report, it just doesn’t look good,” Forté said.

“That’s just something I don’t think the community would accept and we as leaders shouldn’t accept that,” Forté added.

Lemon’s inconsistent statements about the self-approved reports were troubling, said retired chief public defender and University of Missouri-Kansas City law professor Sean O’Brien, who reviewed the internal affairs documents at The Star’s request.

“It is a red flag,” O’Brien said. “It’s a smoking gun is the only way you can look at that.”

As to the allegation that Lemon and the prosecutor, Parsons, had an inappropriate relationship, O’Brien said even friendships should be disclosed.

In April 2017, Forté sent the case back to internal affairs for more investigation. He asked investigators to find out if there were other reports Lemon had self-approved and to ask more questions about the nature of his relationship with Parsons.

In response to questions about that investigation, Shurin and Parsons issued a joint statement denying the allegations. They pointed out that Simmons has previously filed lawsuits based on those allegations, without success.

“It is not unexpected for a criminal defendant to make baseless claims against the person who prosecuted their case,” the statement said.

Lemon, reached in person at the police union office, initially denied having any knowledge of Forté’s investigation. He later sent a statement by email denying the claims.

Lemon said allegations against him had been coordinated by Forté and a convicted felon “to disparage individuals who have dedicated their adult lives” to bringing dangerous criminals to justice.

The Lemon investigation remained with internal affairs when Forté left the department in 2017 and was replaced by Police Chief Rick Smith, a candidate favored by the union and promoted as a major above higher-ranking deputy chiefs.

Becchina, a police spokesman, declined to address any specifics of the internal investigation, citing the issues with Lemon as a personnel matter that didn’t require public disclosure.

After Forté was named sheriff in 2018, he concluded that nothing would come of the investigation. But he said he was reluctant to investigate the claims as sheriff because FOP members of his agency had working relationships with Lemon.

Instead, he sent Simmons’ allegations to the FBI.

Simmons said he had little faith an impartial investigation would be completed. Deposition documents showed FBI agents were present during Lemon’s surveillance in the burglary case that led to Simmons’ arrest and conviction.

Kansas City FBI spokesperson Bridget Patton, reached for comment in September, declined to confirm or deny an investigation.

In early December, attorney and activist lawyer Stacy Shaw was retained by Simmons to file a complaint against Lemon with the Missouri Peace Officers Standards Training (POST) program, the regulatory body that licenses police across the state.

The complaint alleges perjury, maintaining a “significant and undisclosed” relationship with Parsons and the misrepresentation of material facts through the self-signing of police reports.

Lemon declined to comment on the filed complaint.

Since legal remedies through the court system have been exhausted with previous lawsuits, going after Lemon’s license to work in law enforcement in the state was the only option left for Simmons. If the agency finds discipline is warranted, it can order probation, suspension or revocation of the license.

Days after the complaint was filed, more than a dozen protesters showed up outside of the Kansas City FOP headquarters in Westport.

Simmons was there, live streaming the demonstration on his smartphone.

After years of feeling alone in his struggle and telling his story to anyone who would listen, Simmons said the complaint and recent activist efforts led by a younger generation have reinvigorated his belief that change can come about with police accountability.

“It’s just like a candle,” Simmons said of his hopes. “It was dimming and dimming and dimming, and so finally you got another candle up there to keep the light going.”

Within the same week, Forté wrote in a Facebook post that unfit officers were protected by peers, racist leadership and collective bargaining agreements.

“I’m for collective bargaining but we need leaders that are ethical, we need leaders that are lawful, especially standing behind the badge,” Forté said in an interview. “You can’t have unethical leaders and people that operate outside the law in law enforcement.”