KANSAS CITY, Mo. — If the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department stops referring drug-related cases to Clay and Platte county prosecutors, there will no longer be a chance to address substance abuse through treatment courts or other measures, according to those county’s attorneys.
Clay County Prosecuting Attorney Daniel White and Platte County Prosecuting Attorney Eric Zahnd penned a joint letter Wednesday to the KCPD Board of Police Commissioners urging them not to adopt policies that restrict drug-case referrals for prosecution.
“The data is.undeniable that the illegal drug trade fuels violence in our community,” Zahnd and White wrote.
The letter came in response to Jackson County Prosecuting Attorney Jean Peters Baker calling on KCPD to change the way it handles drug cases, citing an analysis in which outcomes in those cases “were not tied to public safety, were ineffective, were expensive and were racially imbalanced, therefore, not fairly enforced on this community.”
Nearly 90% of murders in Platte County in the past five years occurred during drug deals or were committed by a person who was on illegal drugs or had previous drug violations, the letter stated.
While not providing specific statistics for Clay County, the prosecuting attorneys said a “substantial number” of homicides were connected to “a controlled-substance issue.”
“If KCPD stops referring drug cases, we will lose the opportunity to address people's substanc- abuse issues in our Drug Treatment Courts, diversion programs, and through other efforts,” Zahnd and White wrote. “These programs help people deal with their addictions before their drug dependence has further adverse impact on their lives and our community in the form of additional criminal activity, loss of employment, fractured family relationships and other social ills.”
However, Zahn and White also said that referring nonviolent drug cases to their offices shouldn’t deter resources from violent crime investigations.
“We must do all we can to combat violent crime, and part of that involves interrupting the drug trade that often leads to violence,” they said in the letter.
Regardless of the police department’s stance on drug cases, Zahnd and White wrote that they are “unwilling to create a system that would substitute an individual prosecutor's feelings for the laws of this state, decimate Drug Treatment Courts, and, most importantly, undermine the safety of our community.”
