Wyandotte County, Keeping That Task Force on Police and Community Relations White--and Ineffective?--As Can Be

I can really hardly believe what I've seen and read. Check out this article from the Star last week.

Wyandotte County DA is left out of law enforcement task force seeking ‘objective’ view

A bit of the article:

A task force on police and community relations in Wyandotte County will include the sheriff, the Kansas City, Kansas, police chief, and the mayor of the Unified Government.

But it will not include the Wyandotte County district attorney.

Mark Dupree, who has clashed with police and pushed for reforms since he was elected in 2017 as the state’s first black district attorney, was left off the list of members announced Monday.

In a statement to The Star, the office of David Alvey, the Mayor and CEO of the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, said the task force will be charged with gathering community input and passing that input on to local officials. The members will not be making recommendations for change based on that input.

The group, the statement said, is intended to be an “objective panel” — a consideration that contributed to Alvey’s decision not to include Dupree.

“The intent was to allow the district attorney to remain independent, providing inputs and recommendation as part of the task force’s future public forum process, actually ‘presenting’ before and to the task force and offering his perspective and insight as it moves forward.”

But wait. It gets better...

The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to questions regarding what criteria was used to determine whether a task force member was objective and whether any of the chosen members have a history of advocacy.

So the "White Guy In Charge" decides that the local DA, the local District Attorney, shouldn't be included in a task force on police and community relations in light of the street murder of a black American citizen, George Floyd, and consequent calls for police reform in and across the nation.

Even though this very District Attorney has been loudly and publicly calling for that very reform in his job for the last 3 years.

Right.   Got it.

Seriously Mayor Alvey, Wyandotte County, Kansas City, Kansas---can you hear yourselves?  

And check this out. this is how this was all announced, days before the above article.

KCK mayor announces task force to help improve relations between community and police

Let me say again, this Mayor announces a "task force" to "improve relations between community and police" but his first task on this force he created is to throw out the very qualified black guy who has been calling for this for years?

You can't make this stuff up.

Another thing to see from the article:

A woman in the crowd asked why no young black men were on the task force. The mayor said they aren’t trying to exclude anyone.

To which they should have added, "Well, except the one black District Attorney in town who's been calling for change for years.  We ARE trying to exclude him, for sure."

How much more blatantly racist and exclusionary can we all get and be, folks?  Incredible.

At least, thank goodness, the kindly Mayor did allow, in fact, for Unified Government Commissioner Harold Johnson, who is black, to be on the committee. Thank goodness for that, anyway. How good of him.

Interim Kansas City, Kansas, Police Chief Michael York is on the committee.   A white guy.

Fortunately, too The Rev. Tony Carter Jr. of Salem Missionary Baptist Church, a black man, they let him in on the committee, too, thankfully.

Other members of the task force:

• Donnelly College student Yareli Castor-- a young woman of color. Apparently they think she'll be "safe"
• Randy Lopez of the Wyandotte Health Foundation-- not a white guy, thankfully, and not ancient, either
• Donnelly College President Monsignor Stuart Swetland-- White guy.  Very white.  (On the side, someone please tell me what an elderly white Monsignor knows about young black guys being pulled over by police. Please. I'm all ears}.
• Wyandotte County Sheriff Don Ash-- And closing, of course, with a white guy. Another very, very white guy. And a member of a police force, in effect. Because he's not going to be subjective or defensive of his force, right, Mayor Alvey??  Right??  I'm just glad we wont' have anyone on this task force that is nothing but "objective." (Are you freaking kidding me??)

But let the local District Attorney in on this committee to examine relations between the police and the community?  The guy who's been clamoring for change for years? 

And as the young woman in the audience that day asked, not one younger black man on the task force? Not one?   What?  They didn't want his input?  His "subjectivity"?   Excuse me but I thought that's what a community task force was for. That is, to get people's input. You know, THEIR OPINIONS?  THEIR EXPERIENCES??

Added to this, I haven't seen or read anything critical about this task force at all. Not in the Star, not in the younger people's media like The Pitch--which doesn't really get widespread readership anyway, rather sadly.   Certainly not on the vacuous, local evening news.  

Nah....

Don't ask the DA in town. He's a black guy.

He won't be "objective" about it.  His, the Mayor's words, reportedly.

He may have an opinion.

Isn't having an opinion on a task force a good thing? Isn't that what this is all about? Or supposed to be?

This doesn't look like an attempt to fix or change anything as much as it does to maintain the status quo.

Systemic, institutional racism, anyone? Everyone?

Are you freaking kidding me, Mayor Alvey?

Are you kidding us?  All of us?

This is going to stand?