KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department Chief Stacey Graves says she plans to prioritize repairing community relationships.
“We all want the same thing, we all want a safer city,” Graves said in an interview with KSHB 41.
With her new position and the new year ahead, Graves says she's ready for a new start.
“We’ve got to stop this adversarial relationship that we have,” she said. “We have to be part of the community, and the community has to be a part of us. We have to start listening.”
Leaning on community members like Branden Mims, of Adhoc Group Against Crime, may be the key to bridging the gap.
“Every new chief has said that we want to work and improve our relationship with the community,” Mims said. “I’m interested to see what this next plan will be.”
Graves notes she specifically will focus on fairness, impartiality and more extensive procedural justice training.
“I get the point she’s making — the need to approach citizens and involvement with a constitutional mindset,” Mims said. “But I think it also says in 2022 if that’s where we're starting how far KCPD needs to come.”
As an advocate against crime in KC, Mims says the most pressing issues he hopes to see taken seriously include immediacy in missing person cases, complaints against officers and accountability.
“We would love to see the use of force go down, we would like to see more police officers in the community, we want to see 911 times shortened dramatically and the response times shortened,” Mims said.
