Kansas City Police Chief Darryl Forte is under fire for using the term "unreasonable fear" in reference to policing.
Scott Kirkpatrick, President of Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #4 in Kansas City, Kansas, wrote an open letter to Forte on Facebook calling the comments ridiculous and uninformed.
"The fear is real," Kirkpatrick wrote. "People are out to harm us. And now your comments will only make things worse."
KCK is still healing from the recent deaths of Detective Brad Lancaster and Captain Dave Melton. Kirkpatrick added, "Officers are rightfully on edge. They have seen their brothers and sisters gunned down in cold blood simply for wearing the uniform." Then addressed Forte with, "Right now, you are a detriment to our profession. You are not helping. You are only making it worse."
Click here to read Kirkpatrick's entire post
In a 41 Action News exclusive, we asked the 31-year KCPD veteran to explain the statement.
"I think it's come from not understanding the population that you police sometimes. And sometimes the population that we police, they don't understand us," Forte said. "It's almost like them versus us, even when we speak of it in law enforcement. We talk about the police department and the community, and I've tried my entire career to talk about the police and other segments of the community because we're all one community, but I think we lose that."
Forte also addressed the previous comments by stating, "I want to apologize to anybody that may have been offended by that, but what I do say like we talk about over and over, let's communicate before we start getting on a keyboard, before we get in front of a mic and talk about how bad somebody is, let's sit down and talk."
Kirkpatrick isn't the only law enforcement leader speaking out against the chief's interview.
Kansas City FOP Lodge #99 President Brad Lemon wrote in a blog, "I cannot understand any statement regarding unreasonable fear on our member’s part when dealing with life and death situations. We are humans, and not robots. We have families and lives. The fear that officers feel during critical incidents is real. It is not for someone else to tell us what is reasonable or unreasonable.”
Click here to read Lemon's entire blog
Forte told 41 Action News he understands the criticism, "because I'm saying some things other people haven't said before. I talk about unreasonable fear, I talk about biases, I talk about internal bullying within the organization. I talk about a lot of things that people are uncomfortable talking about. I've talked to many African-American males out in the community, and they talk about how fearful they are when a police officer drives by or stops them."
That fact, Forte said, is forcing him to look at things differently.
"When you talk about the Black Lives Matter movement, I understand where people are coming from and again as long as I'm the police chief of Kansas City, Missouri, this is a place for me to be a part of a movement," Forte shared.
He said he stands by his fellow law enforcement officers and he is sorry for offending anyone, but he wants to keep talking.
"I'm going to keep throwing some things out there to make people think. I don't have all the answers, but I have some based on my 31 years of experience in Kansas City, Missouri, as an African-American male and as a police officer," said Forte. "Probably 95, 98 percent of our people, hearts are right, they want to do the right thing, but that's not good enough. We need an entire police department that wants to do the right thing."
Chief Forte wrote a blog post responding to his critics. Click here to read the entire blog.
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Dia Wall can be reached at dia.wall@kshb.com.
