KSHB 41 reporter Ryan Gamboa covers Cass County in Missouri. He also covers agricultural topics. Ryan broke the story of Cass County and Missouri Congressional District 4 offering county property to ICE for a detention center, if it chooses to do so. Share your story idea with Ryan.
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Jackson County Sheriff Daryl Forte and Chairman of the Jackson County Legislature, Manny Abarca, held a public forum to help bridge the gap between law enforcement and the community.
The motivation is to help provide clarity with the public on Abarca's and Forte's priority to create transparency in federal and local law enforcement operations.
"The relationship is there trying to figure out how to focus on how to protect the community in a lot of different ways," Abarca said about his relationship with the Jackson County Sheriff.
The crowd was small, but there was much discussion surrounding Immigration and Customs Enforcement'ss presence in Jackson County.
"My granddaughter has married a Guatemalan," one resident shared. "He tells me the family is just waiting on ICE to come and get him."
Those concerns were primarily the same through much of the meeting.
One resident expressed to the group that not everyone is opposed to ICE.
A majority of those in attendance wanted to know how both the Sheriff's Office and Legislature were going to offer protections for the community.
"If they don't pull the masks off, and start treating people with respect, this city is gonna be tore up like it was in the 60s," Kansas City resident Coylet Wilson told KSHB 41 reporter Ryan Gamboa. "If they’re not wrong, they shouldn’t be afraid of the mask. They shouldn’t be afraid of the mask if they’re doing something wrong."
Wilson is referencing a ordinance introduced at the Jackson County Legislature that would prohibit law enforcement from concealing their faces or badges during an operation.
It was the primary talking point at Thursday night's forum — Sheriff Forte has been outspoken against the ordinance.
"It’s about the discretion piece," Forte said. "I don’t want certain elements in an ordinance that prohibits us from doing something where we have to violate it. I think based on intelligence and what's good for the community at that time, that's how we make our decisions, not based on an ordinance."
Legislator Abarca introduced the ordinance back in December.
"There’s some discrepancies and what’s being safe and what’s not, and what’s justification for hiding from accountability and not," Abarca said. "The premise of my effort is to make sure law enforcement broadly has public accountability to the very constituencies they’re serving."
Thursday night's forum also presented the opportunity for elected leaders to acknowledge a company that said it won't sell a south Kansas City warehouse to the federal government for an ICE detention center.
Platform Ventures released a statement Thursday addressing the reported negotiations.
"Platform Ventures is not actively engaged with the U.S. Government or any other prospective purchaser involving a sale of its property at the I-49 Industrial Center. While typically we do not comment on potential transactions, baseless speculation, inaccurate narratives and serious threats toward our leadership, our employees and our families have prompted us to issue this statement."
“As we stated previously, we were approached by a third-party private enterprise for this transaction and entered into preliminary negotiations consistent with the fiduciary duties owed to our investors. As negotiations concluded, we learned the purchasing party was the U.S. Government. Over the course of the building sale process, we determined that the terms no longer met our fiduciary requirements for a timely closing. Therefore, we chose not to move forward.”
Sheriff Forte expressed that ICE's presence in the metro and Missouri is not something that's new. It's only been more public, because of the President's priorities.
Multiple community groups, including DecarcerateKC, have been protesting since ICE's interest in the property was first reported..
"This moment speaks volumes to people coming together across Kansas City," Amaia Cook, executive director of DecarcerateKC, said in a statement about the sale not going through. "We showed that when we are united and when we're fighting for people, we win."
Other communities have shown interest in welcoming federal law enforcement authorities into their community after pushback from both Kansas City and Jackson County, Missouri.
Rep. Mark Alford, a Republican who represents Missouri's 4th Congressional District, along with Cass County Presiding Commissioner Bob Huston, offered their support in mid-January.
"Cass County has always supported our law enforcement, from the city police to the county deputies, state patrol, and federal law enforcement," Huston said in a January inteview with Cass County Reporter Ryan Gamboa. "Any time we can bring more federal money to our county, and more jobs, that's a good thing for our county."
Huston's sentiments followed a letter U.S. Rep. Alford (R), sent to federal officials offering two locations in Cass County to build a detention facility.
"As we said in our recent letter to the Department of Homeland Security, the Fourth District would welcome federal law enforcement facilities. Between the I-70 and I-49 corridors, there are numerous suitable sites in my district," Alford said in a statement to KSHB 41.
Legislator Abarca, representing Jackson County's 1st District, represents people in the newly drawn 4th Congressional District lines that are currently involved in legal actions.
"Mark Alford, god bless his soul," Abarca said. "The reality of that is it’s all politics. I don’t know if there is any value in determining whether I’m in fourth or fifth. Both members of Congress should be working create public accountability for a lot of things."
Alford went on to add in his statement: "As a member of the House Appropriations Committee, I will continue to work with the Trump Administration to ensure it has the resources needed to repatriate criminal illegal aliens to their countries of origin. We will always stand with law enforcement from ICE to our local police officers.”
Sheriff Forte expressed that he is actively reaching out to ICE leadership to schedule a meeting with its Special Agent in Charge for the region.
The goal is to create more communication and collaboration between the agencies.
"They might sign an MOU agreeing if ICE agents come here doing large scale operations, they must wear body worn cameras because in Minneapolis, that’s what they’ve done," Forte said. "For the people that might be wearing a mask, I want to sit down with their administration and figure out what we can do to make this better."
It's unclear when that meeting may take place.
Sheriff Forte explained local ICE leadership has processes it must go through to ensure these meetings take place. The ordinance, in its proposed language, "result in internal disciplinary action, increased exposure to civil liability in related legal claims and criminal misdemeanor penalties."
While that ordinance is still being revised, including who will enforce it, Sheriff Forte expressed that his deputies can be cited if they interfere with a federal law enforcement operation.
"They can legally cite us for impeding an investigation, so we have to work through those things," Forte said.
Moving forward, Abarca and Forte are working together to ensure the community is safe and heard through the process.
"It’s important to show our constituents that we work together closely and let it be known we have a lot more in common than we don’t," he added.
KSHB 41 reached out to ICE for more information on potential detention center sites and locations, and is still awaiting a response.
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