In the 10 months after George Floyd’s death, some Kansas City-area police saw change

In the 10 months since a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd, some Kansas City area law enforcement agencies have changed how officers restrain suspects, carry stun guns and respond to public demonstrations.

Others have employed training courses that re-empathized the need for officers to keep their cool in tense situations and step in when peers lose theirs.

The Kansas City Police Department implemented new directives for officers who wear body-worn cameras as well as a new policy that explicitly prohibits officers from using less-lethal weapons “to disperse crowds in the event of an unlawful assembly.”

During the summer demonstrations in Kansas City, police were criticized for their use of tear gas and less-lethal munitions to disperse crowds after officers reported that objects were thrown at them.

Law enforcement officials in Grandview, Overland Park, and at the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office said their agencies have placed more emphasis on de-escalation, encouraged officers to hold each other accountable and expanded their community relations outreach.

“I think there’s a little bit of tension on the streets,” said Grandview Police Chief Charles Iseman. “But I think what counteracts that is having my folks, they volunteer giving away food at local churches or doing different events.

“It takes the edge off a little bit, both for my officers and for the public. So it seems to be a pretty good recipe for us,” Iseman said.

Following the protests last summer, the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office created a website where community members could submit allegations and evidence of police misconduct.

Since then the office has received more than 50 complaints, many of them related to interactions with police officers, said Michael Mansur, a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office.

One of those complaints stemmed from a video of a Kansas City police officer pepper spraying a man and his teenage daughter at a demonstration last summer. The video went viral and resulted in a charge against the officer.

In that case, Nicholas McQuillen, 38, was charged with fourth-degree misdemeanor assault. A grand jury indictment alleged McQuillen “recklessly caused physical pain to ... a juvenile, by spraying a chemical agent at and/or near her face and eyes.”

The other cases remain under review, Mansur said.

Sgt. Jacob Becchina, a spokesman for the Kansas City Police Department, said the department has implemented a number of reforms and policies that were informed by last summer’s demonstrations.

Those include body-worn cameras for officers and guidelines of how officers respond to protests and demonstrations.

Under the department’s “First Amendment” policy, officers are required to allow “law-abiding individuals to continue to exercise their First Amendment protected rights, and will focus efforts on those individuals in the active assembly who violate the law.”

Officers are instructed to create a buffer zone between police and protesters. Officers are not allowed to intentionally escalate tensions between themselves and protesters, according to the policy.

Becchina said police leaders listened to the concerns of the community, learned about the reforms they wanted and found ways to implement some of them.

“It is our officers honor to serve this community, we do so in challenging times and in good times, that will continue regardless, we took an oath and made a pledge to our citizens and we stand ready to serve every day,” Becchina said in an email to The Star.

The events of last summer convinced the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office of the need to re-emphasize two key concepts to new hires and veteran deputies alike.

“Peer accountability and de-escalation techniques,” said Capt. Jeremy Campbell.

Each sworn law enforcement officer in Kansas must take 40 hours of continuing education each year. As head of the department’s in-house training program, Campbell has over the past year tried to incorporate both those concepts into every exercise where the use of force might come into play.

Peer accountability training, he said, stresses the responsibility each deputy has to recognize when peers are losing control in a tense situation and take some action to calm them before something regrettable happens.

“Say one of the involved officers has had an adrenaline dump, and maybe needs to be removed from the situation or calm down or have a moment to themselves,” Campbell, “we’re just encouraging staff to be able to recognize that amongst their peers, and to be able to take appropriate steps to...help them kind of separate from the crisis so that they can dial it down.”

It’s important for law enforcement officers to use their heads in dealing with the public, he said. That means speaking calmly when it’s appropriate so that situations don’t spin out of control.

“I mean, 99% of a cop’s job is talking to people,” Campbell said. “I often say our words are to law enforcement what a hammer is to a carpenter. Your language and your ability to communicate is the tool that you use all the time. You may shoot your gun once in your entire career, right? But you’re going to talk to people and calm people down 1,000 times or more.”

Campbell said the department is careful in who it hires and that the screening process, along with a training program that exceeds the minimum requirements, has helped the department avoid problems.

“I don’t want to jinx anything, but we have a long history of not having use-of-force issues.”

Derek Chauvin, the officer who killed Floyd by kneeling on his neck for nearly 10 minutes, was convicted Tuesday of three counts including second-degree murder.

But during the trial, another Black man was killed in a confrontation with police in a Minneapolis suburb.

That, too, has sparked at least one local reform.

Roeland Park police initiated a new policy to help ensure that officers do not mistake a firearm for a stun gun. They are now required to carry their stun gun on the opposite side of the body from the firearm.

That forces them to reach across their bodies, which is a reminder of what weapon they have in their hand.

The change was in response to the police shooting death of Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. Police said that the officer who shot Wright mistakenly drew a handgun instead of a Taser, fatally shooting Wright.

“We’re being proactive,” Roeland Park Police Chief John Morris said. “We’re not waiting for problems to come, we are resolving them before we get to that.”

One problem: the policy change wouldn’t have prevented Wright’s death in Brooklyn Center. The officer who shot him did have her Taser holstered on the opposite side of her pistol, yet reached for the deadly weapon instead while warning Wright he was about to be zapped with the stun gun.

According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, it was at least the 16th case in the U.S. in which a police officer shot someone when they intended to use a Taser, and only the fourth time that someone died as a result.

Nine of those cases did not lead to criminal charges, and a judge ordered charges dropped in a tenth.