KCPD doubles officers dedicated to working with neighborhoods

The Kansas City Missouri Police Department now has twice as many police officers dedicated to working directly with neighborhoods. As promised, two Community Interaction Officers now are assigned to each of our six patrol divisions. The second set started March 26. That makes for a dozen officers who are dedicated to working proactively to empower neighborhoods, resolve ongoing issues and prevent crime.

Historically, Community Interaction Officers (CIOs) at KCPD have helped facilitate communication between the Police Department and the residents of Kansas City. They encourage residents to be actively involved in anti-crime efforts and promote community support for the police department through positive interaction and partnerships with the community. CIOs meet with members of the community on a regular basis to address specific community problems and plausible solutions.

But what about neighborhoods and residents who don’t engage with police or each other? One thing we know for sure is that strong neighborhoods – those that are well organized and whose residents are engaged and look out for each other – have less crime. So all 12 CIOs have been tasked with engaging and empowering neighborhoods that lack organization and involvement. We are partnering with the UMKC Center for Neighborhoods to help identify community leaders, implement crime prevention strategies and empower residents to improve their quality of life.

The new set of Community Interaction Officers are assigned to work from 1 to 9 p.m. This allows them to engage with people who may not have been involved before because they work during the day. The new CIOs’ shifts overlap with the existing CIOs so they can coordinate, but they’re expanded into the evening to increase the opportunity for residents to work with us. The new, second-shift CIOs were chosen by patrol division leaders based on their experience and desire to build community relationships and help solve neighborhood problems. They’re being implemented now because we have a class of Academy graduates who are now off their probationary period. I did not want to pull existing officers off the streets. The CIOs all will be trained in the proven crime prevention strategy of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED). They will be ready to help residents and businesses create an environment that deters criminal activity.

This approach has seen success elsewhere. The New York City Police Department implemented two Neighborhood Coordination Officers (very similar to our CIOs) in about 20 of their precincts in 2015. They’ve continued to expand it city-wide. In 2017, New York City’s overall crime rate was at its lowest level since 1951, and its 2017 homicides were the lowest in 70 years. We would love to see similar results in Kansas City.

But the police are only part of the solution. The resident engagement piece is huge, and we cannot reduce crime and improve quality of life without it. If we were all neighborly, looked out for each other and reported crime, we’d have a much safer city.

We don’t want your only contact with police to be during a crisis. We want to work with everyone proactively to prevent issues from escalating to that point. Below are the names of the Community Interaction Officers assigned to each patrol division, along with the division phone numbers, so you can call and ask for them. Those listed second are the newly assigned, second-shift CIOs. They all look forward to working with you!


Central Patrol Division: 816-234-5510
Officer Andy Hamil
Officer Holly Sticken

East Patrol Division: 816-234-5530
Master Police Officer Greg Smith
Officer Patrick Byrd

Metro Patrol Division: 816-581-0700 
Officer Mikki Cassidy
Officer Richard Marquez

North Patrol Division: 816-437-6200
Officer John Lozano
Officer Robert Pavlovic

Shoal Creek Patrol Division: 816-413-3440
Officer Bill Keeney
Officer Richard Jones

South Patrol Division: 816-234-5550
Officer Mary McCall
Officer Aaron Whitehead

Send comments to kcpdchiefblog@kcpd.org. 

My first week as Chief

(Chief Richard Smith was sworn in as KCPD's 45th Chief of Police on Aug. 15, 2017.)

It’s been just more than a week now since I was sworn in as the Chief of Police of the Kansas City Missouri Police Department, and it has been a whirlwind. I again thank the Board of Police Commissioners for giving me the opportunity to serve in this role. I am humbled and honored to do so.

I’d like to share with you a little about my first week as Chief. Last Thursday, the 17th, I met with all of our commanders and directors to discuss my vision for the department and how I think we can work together to achieve it. I have three primary goals:

1. Set employees up for success

2. Reduce crime and address neighborhood issues

3. Become more efficient and effective through partnerships.

There are many, many factors that go into achieving these things, and I’ll be sharing those in the future. But I wanted to give you a few examples of each of them now.

Set employees up for success- To better cope with the growing mental health crisis that is falling more and more on law enforcement, all patrol officers will receive Crisis Intervention Team training. This will allow every responding officer to have the tools and training necessary to respond to people in mental health or substance abuse crisis in a way that ensures everyone is safe and the person gets needed assistance.

Reduce crime and address neighborhood issues- We’re implementing patrol division-level crime intelligence meetings. Commanders of each patrol division will be held accountable for the crime in their areas. And as soon as staffing allows, all patrol division stations will have an additional community interaction officer, making for 12 altogether. I think this is one of the most important positions on the KCPD, as these officers serve as the points of contact for all neighborhood concerns.

Become more efficient and effective through partnerships- We are working to get social workers assigned to each patrol division in the city. We started this last year when I commanded Central Patrol Division, and our social worker addressed numerous social problems that had evolved into public safety issues, from unruly gatherings of youth on the Plaza to neighborhood disputes. She has been able to step in and resolve things in ways law enforcement could not, and I am certain this would be beneficial city-wide.

I’ve also spent my first week addressing staffing issues. We need to get more call-takers and dispatchers in our 911 Call Center, and we need to get more patrol officers on the streets as soon as possible. They are the heart of what we do as police.

So in the past week, I’ve visited employees in many units around the department. Some were the officers in Central and East Patrol Divisions, and I paid two visits to our Communications Unit to let them know that we are working to get more quality personnel hired to reduce their workloads and improve service to the people of Kansas City. Our patrol officers and communications professionals should know that their hard work is so appreciated and vital, and I am supporting them during these challenging times.

I’ve also been to multiple crime scenes and several protest events. It is very difficult emotionally, but I will continue to be out at crime scenes to see how our people are responding, and if we are doing the most we possibly can to get witnesses to come forward and send the right message to victims’ loved ones and bystanders. I also hope to continue to grow my understanding of what leads to these tragedies and to support the hard-working KCPD members who respond to these incidents. I also will be at demonstrations and events because I’d like to hear the community’s concerns and be accessible.

My first week as Chief of Police has certainly been eventful, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I look forward to serving you.

Send comments to kcpdchiefblog@kcpd.org. 

Come join us on Nextdoor

Yesterday, we joined with the City Manager’s and Mayor’s offices to officially launch Nextdoor in Kansas City. Nextdoor is a free and private social network for neighborhoods. On Nextdoor, neighbors create private web sites for their neighborhoods where they can ask questions, get to know one another, and exchange local advice and recommendations. 

Once I heard about it, I immediately recognized the benefit Nextdoor could have to police and community safety. It can serve as a virtual neighborhood watch.

One of my primary goals as police chief has been for our officers to build positive relationships with the residents they serve. Nextdoor provides us the opportunity to augment those existing relationships online while fostering new ones.

We are training more than 80 patrol officers and sergeants to use and manage this system. They will be responsible for communicating with people in the geographic areas they police. They know the concerns and opportunities in these areas already and are best suited to interact with the residents they serve. The officers will be able to post information pertaining to their whole patrol division or down to their beats.

We don’t intend for Nextdoor to be a replacement for face-to-face contact, but rather a complement to what we’re already doing. We look forward to residents being able to provide us information about safety concerns in their neighborhood and working with them to address those concerns.

Similarly, Nextdoor will serve as a great tool for us in soliciting assistance. As police, we can only do so much. We need the eyes, ears and cooperation of everyone to make this a safer city. A whole neighborhood of people watching for criminal activity or a suspect is usually far more effective at deterring and solving crime than anything our officers or detectives could do.

Nextdoor is another tool in our social media belt. Our police department has had great success with it and in 2013 was named the fourth-most social media friendly police department in the nation.

More than 110 Kansas City neighborhoods already are using Nextdoor, and I invite you to head over to www.nextdoor.com to sign up! (You can also do it on your Android or iPhone through Nextdoor's free app.)

Send comments to kcpdchiefblog@kcpd.org.