KANSAS CITY, Mo. _ For years, Kansas City police detectives failed to properly investigate some rapes, serious abuse and other crimes against the city's children. And in many instances, detectives did no work at all, internal police department memos recently obtained by the Kansas City Star reveal.
A special squad assigned a year ago to help clear backlogged cases uncovered those problems and many others so serious that in January Police Chief Darryl Forte suspended nearly the entire Crimes Against Children unit of detectives and sergeants. At the time, Forte said cases were being worked too slowly.
But police never disclosed the depth and scope of the detectives' inaction on reported crimes _ sexual assaults, broken bones, near starvation among them. The department's own memos describe 148 "severely mishandled" cases, "gross negligence," "incompetence" and evidence of attempts to "cover up."
"Never in my career with the KCPD have I seen such a systemic failure," Maj. David Lindaman wrote in a Nov. 19 memo to a deputy chief that was among hundreds of pages of documents obtained by The Star.
Lindaman blamed sergeants for poor supervision, detectives for not holding themselves accountable and commanders _ himself included _ "for allowing this organizational failure to develop over the past four years."
According to the memos, many cases sat idle for months. Fifty sat idle for more than a year, including the report of a 4-year-old girl who had been raped and infected with a sexually transmitted disease.
Relatives told The Star that they called the detective six or seven times after their lone meeting with her but never heard back. For more than a year they looked over their shoulders, fearful that the rapist could be near when, as it turned out, the suspect sat locked in a Kansas jail on another child rape allegation, easy to find for anyone actually looking for him.
"These (detectives) are the people we called to protect us," a relative of the 4-year-old told The Star. "I feel like they were just throwing our case away."
The memos describe numerous other investigations that languished for many months, sometimes from the beginning of the case and other times after a detective spent some time investigating. They included reports of:
_4- and 5-year-old malnourished and neglected children who had been sodomized by a sex offender living in their home.
_An 11-month-old child who suffered a skull fracture and another 11-month-old with a broken femur.
_A 12-year-old runaway raped by three men, at least one of whom she identified to police.
Detectives closed cases they could have solved, the documents detail. They never questioned some named suspects. They failed to follow a lead involving DNA.
And they left a handgun, cellphones, DVDs of recorded interviews with children and a range of other evidence in desks for months, even years, sometimes without any note to indicate what case the evidence accompanied.
The department's failures _ The Star found in extensive reporting _ impact hospital staff, child welfare workers and child interview specialists whose efforts, often before detectives got assigned, went for naught. The failures handicap prosecutors who have had to delay filing charges or couldn't file them at all.
And ultimately the failures steal from victimized children the chance to obtain justice _ and safety.
When The Star recently asked Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker whether the detectives' inaction left any children in peril, she paused, sighed and paused again for several seconds.
"Move on to another question," she finally said. She declined to be more specific but said, "It pains me to think about that."
Platte County Prosecutor Eric Zahnd acknowledged harm done to children. His office managed to prosecute cases with old evidence. "Sadly, however, the delay in investigating and referring cases for charges exposed additional children to sexual abuse," he told The Star.
Forte declined an interview and would not allow his command staff to publicly discuss the unit's problems or the ongoing internal investigation.
But in a written statement, Forte called the suspensions an unprecedented step in the department's history, saying "but it was one we felt was needed to properly serve and protect our city's most vulnerable victims."
He noted that in April, the department created a quality-control until that has reviewed tens of thousands of cases handled by patrol officers and investigators to make sure cases are being handled thoroughly and in a timely fashion.
He declined to provide specifics about the internal investigation into the Crimes Against Children unit.
"We want to thoroughly review our processes and actions of all personnel involved," Forte wrote. "Because that investigation is not complete and because it is an internal one, I cannot comment any further about it."
