Kansas City Police Board votes to sue Mayor Lucas and City Council
The Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners has voted 4-1 to file a lawsuit against Mayor Quinton Lucas and the City Council in response to their decision to reallocate Police Funding to community efforts.
Mayor Lucas, who holds a seat on the Board of Police Commissioners, was the one lone vote opposing the lawsuit. The lawsuit follows a previous, closed-door vote by the Board of Police Commissioners to consider taking legal action, which was also opposed by Mayor Lucas.
“Despite that, the Board of Police Commissioners has met twice this week, quickly going into non-public closed sessions, not spending a minute talking about violent crime in our community and how we can make our neighborhoods safer,” Mayor Lucas says, in a press release today. “While expected, today’s lawsuit reflects a failure—a failure of our status quo—where power and politics get the attention and the energy of our state, not the toll of violence in our neighborhoods and tragedies of human lives.”
The lawsuit is in response to the introduction to the cities decision to approve a measure to cut back the police budget to 20% of the city’s general fund which equates to nearly $42 million. All of which would be reallocated to a newly created Community Services and Prevention Fund.
Read more: https://www.thepitchkc.com/kansas-city-police-board-votes-to-sue-mayor-lucas-and-city-council/