(upbeat music) - Welcome back for the April edition of Kansas City Experience.

I'm Catherine Hoffman.

This month we learned about Judge Isaac Franklin Bradley Sr., the first black graduate from the University of Kansas Law School.

The first black judge in Kansas city, Kansas and a Civil Rights leader.

- [Francis] He was inspired by a book that described prominent African American men.

And so that's when he decided to go to the University of Kansas.

- [Catherine] From the Curious KC Mailbag, we answer a question about the impact of airports on the Kansas City community.

We also hear about Womyn's Land, a sanctuary in rural Missouri for lesbians looking to withdraw from the mainstream world.

Calvin Arsenia covers a Daft Punk hit for the 90.9 Bridge Series Playback to celebrate the station's 20th anniversary.

♪ Music's got me feeling so free ♪ ♪ Music's got me feeling so free ♪ ♪ Music's got me feeling so free ♪ ♪ Music's got me feeling so free ♪ - Up first this month, we examine the complex issue of police staffing and recruiting.

This report, which was featured as a part of a larger conversation on the monthly program, "Flatland", also looks at reconsidering how resources are allocated.

- As a black man I've always looked at the history of law enforcement and the role that we have played.

Back in the 1800s, a lot of the people that were overseers of slaves, they wore a badge.

Then we move into the early 20s where Jim Crow and the lynching and things of that sort, where African Americans were telling the police, "These group of men took my kid", and then nothing was done.

And then you move into the 1960s with police being involved in the Civil Rights and the dogs and arrest and things of that sort, and the brutality that some of these Civil Rights leaders suffered and the protestors suffered.

When I saw protestors in 2020, protesting to George Floyd, I understood, because I was out there protesting during the Rodney King riot.

So each generation has had some type of incident with law enforcement where it's been very, very negative.

So it's almost like we take two steps forward and then we get 10 steps going back, when major incidents occur.

- I think it's important to understand that you cannot get to a place of community, if you're not dealing with the problems of the past.

And we all come to this situation and to this topic with our respective points of view and our own agendas and that doesn't have to be negative, but I think that we've got to really be very serious, as a community, about what actual change looks like and why it's needed.

I was arrested once and it was the most painful experience of my life, because my mother was there to witness it.

Turns out it was a case of mistaken identity, he claimed, but she said that was the worst thing I've ever had to experience, was watching my child be handcuffed and taken away in a police car.

You know, I'm here to tell the story, but what's behind the story is the context of it.

And the context is that we do get stopped more often and that we are profiled.

And that very often these encounters end up with us losing our lives or a lot of questions about what happened to us.

And so that's why I wanted to share my own experiences.

I don't want people to be tuned out, because they think they already know what they should be thinking about the subject or how they should feel.

(police sirens) - This will tell us where all the calls are, like what's pending, what officers are on which calls and then it also labels what type of call it is, priority level.

You have a parent came onto the bus upset about something and started verbally arguing with the bus driver.

And is this a good address for you?

Basically every single car in the city is busy, we're blacked out citywide for almost half the shift.

Cars coming from North Zone and Shoal Creek, answering high priority calls, such as like a domestic violence in South Zone and they're having to wait an additional, almost 10 minutes, because of all that, then you have to contribute factors of traffic or construction or something.

And it's just very unsettling to know that people are having to wait that long.

- Response times matter if I'm calling 911, 'cause my neighbors' are in a fight and those officers are gonna be there in three to four minutes, versus those officers are gonna be there in eight to 10 minutes.

That extra five or six minutes of arguing and fighting could be whether that escalates into something truly tragic.

Honestly been some of the most challenging last couple years that we've had.

The attrition and the loss has been such, that right now, you're just trying to get back to where you currently should be.

The retirements are gonna happen.

The ones that concern you are losing that five to 10 year officer.

And that's what we've lost a lot of.

- In 2021, KCPD lost 226 employees to separation.

So from 2018 to 2021, KCPD lost 717 employees, but only hired 559.

That's a loss of 158 members.

- Not here today to sugarcoat, or anything like that.

2021 was the second highest homicide rate we've ever had in Kansas City.

It's really crime overall, across the country, is down, but violence, homicides and non-fatal shootings are up across the country.

And Kansas City is no exception to that.

- The violent crime can take considerably more resources of maybe six officers working on that particular shift, you might tie up four or five of them.

'Cause somebody goes with the victim to the hospital, to ensure their wellbeing and their welfare.

You've got at least a couple officers maintaining a crime scene.

You've got somebody that has to go with a particular suspect for booking and processing and all that.

You know, so you potentially have four or five of your six tied up on one particular scene and that scene can run at least a couple, two, three hours.

What looked like six or even eight working that particular shift, now you're down to three and the calls keep coming.

- It's a tough time to be a police officer.

Departments all across the country are struggling to recruit officers to take the job.

No police chief wants to tell a member of the public that, no, we're not coming.

If you call 911, there's sort of a, you know, this baked in philosophy that you call and we'll come.

You know, determining how many people you need to staff a police department, it's a complicated issue for a lot of reasons.

Some places use a crime rate.

Crime goes up, you need more officers, but it's not really a good way of doing it.

So what they did was they had pairings of three different beats.

And one beat would get patrol removed and sent to another beat where it would be doubled up.

And then the third one would be just a control group, to see, you know, with no change.

Now they wanted to measure, you know, the crime exchange to the perception of crime change, did response times change, and it basically turned out there was no difference.

So it sort of opened up the eyes of American policing, to say, "Hey, wait a minute.

You know, this random patrol, you know, and rapid response is probably not, you know, the way we should be doing business."

You know, and a lot of what the police do doesn't really focus on crime.

So the best way to staff an organization is by seeing what kind of work that is required of them.

We don't need the police to do a lot of things that they're doing now.

And I think one of the positive things that will come out of, you know, what we're dealing with now is sort of a reckoning with that.

One of the use of force by the police is oftentimes not pretty.

And you know, people react to that, rightfully so, react to that.

And they want to be make sure that it's done properly.

- Adding more police to a body of people that a community already doesn't trust, I don't think is the way to go.

The thought about calling the police to come and help you in a situation can be a difficult choice to make.

- It's a very, very scary situation, to be black and policed in Kansas City.

One of my first interactions with law enforcement here was at the age of 15, where I was assaulted in handcuffs by law enforcement at a school dance.

Had experiences where I've had to help dress wounds on my own son, because he was harassed and beat up by the police walking home from work, carrying a pizza, in high school.

In this climate, where we live in a system that is constantly asking for new ways to create more funding for policing, create more funding for law enforcement, what I want to encourage them to do is to consider to take that money and to give it to community to serve the needs that they actually have.

- When people have the things that they need.

When they have food, shelter, clothing, employment, we don't have the big crime problems that you see.

- We're talking about violence prevention, specifically primary prevention.

We're really thinking about things that support families, particularly young families.

This is where we partner with the folks talking about livable wages, and we talk about affordable housing, access to early childcare, early childhood learning and things like that.

These are all a part of the prevention spectrum.

If the house is on fire, people don't really want to hear about, well here's how you could have prevented that fire.

(chuckling) You know, people are like, no, come put this fire out.

So many times that looks like, bring the police in, increase the police, staff the police up.

We don't really have evidence to show that that is as helpful, but it looks immediate.

If you guys keep just putting the fire out, without really getting to the root of why it's on fire, the next house is gonna be on fire, and then the next one and this fire will never really go out.

- Crime prevention should be a community thing.

It's not a police thing.

And I know the police would embrace that.

Yeah, they've been clamoring for help for a long time.

It's the two clause sentences, you know, it's proactive and aggressive policing and Folsom community partnerships and investing in the community.

And that's the combination, it's a one, two punch.

It's not a singular effort.

- Some of those police officers are running from call to call, that makes it difficult to get to know the neighborhood, that we have to get that trust much better than what it is now.

And what it's been in the past.

- My name is Francis Bradley Robinson and Judge Isaac Franklin Bradley Sr. was my grandfather.

(soft instrumental music) As far as I know, he was born in Saline County, which is in Missouri.

And his parents were enslaved.

A part of his autobiographical sketch says that he never had new shoes or new clothes or anything for many, many years.

And he was a graduate of a school of hard times.

- It had to be difficult.

Number one, housing, you were confined in certain areas.

The jobs at that time, you only could get the menial jobs here in Kansas City.

It basically was, in my opinion, the same as the south.

- He was inspired by a book that described prominent men, African American men.

And he decided at that time that the field of law would be something that might prove to be advantageous for a young man.

And so that's when he decided to go to the University of Kansas and seek a law degree.

African Americans were admitted, but they weren't necessarily always accepted.

And that came with the housing and cafeteria options and professors that were not always on board with admissions policies, that is, not really wanting African Americans in the classes.

But in spite of all of that he was able to succeed.

My grandfather graduated from the University of Kansas School of Law in 1887.

(soft instrumental music) - And in the law, which he was in, it had to be difficult, because if you brought a case against someone that the power structure, so to speak, did not want you to bring, you would probably not be able to, you know, be able to do well.

He challenged all of that.

I was just fascinated by him and particularly his association with Douglas Hospital.

- [Francis] He was one of the co-founders of the historic Douglas Hospital, which was established in 1898.

It served the black community for many years when African Americans were not able to be serviced at any of the existing hospitals.

- [Chester] And that was one of his greatest benches is to be a leading proponent for Douglas Hospital.

- [Francis] Judge Bradley was an original member of the Niagara Movement, which was an organization that was called together by the activist, W.E.B.

Du Bois.

And they met at Ontario, Canada, near Niagara Falls.

- [Chester] That had a great impact, as you stated, that was a forerunner of the NAACP.

He was a part of a great impact of American history.

- [Francis] Even though he was a part of that national group, he felt his commitment was to better his own community.

So after being on that nationalist, he returned to Kansas City, Kansas and continued to work for the people in his own community.

- It's important, first to know the history of Wyandotte County and particular of African American community in Wyandotte County.

And when you look and see what people did during that period of time, under circumstances in which they had to live under, we should, number one, honor them, because they opened a door, and particularly in the field of law, in the field of medicine, in the field of business and we're standing on their shoulders.

- I think it's important that today people are aware of a Judge Bradley's story, because he was an entrepreneur.

He was successful, but he was not only successful for himself, but he put most, a lot of his energy to making sure that other people were able to succeed as well.

He may have been the first in a lot of areas, but he wanted to make sure that he was not the last.

(ragtime music) - There is a deep, you know, a rich history of aviation in Kansas City.

It began with Lucky Lindy Lindbergh being dedicating the airport, in 1927.

And at that point he said that he thinks that Kansas City could be a very important aviation hub, because of the proximity of the airport to the city center downtown.

And also just the geographic center of the U.S. (ragtime music) The TWA was a huge employer of people in the Kansas City area.

So, of course that had a big impact on families and their livelihoods and everywhere you go.

So, you know, dad worked there, mom worked there, you know, and I think deeply ingrained in Kansas City's history and the families that are here.

And if you talk about economic impact, municipal airport/downtown airport has a long history of an impact on the community and a deep rich aviation history as well.

- When I travel, 'cause I travel a fair amount for my work and when I come home, we have this saying of, "Welcome back to normal", 'cause even though it's extremely unusual, just certain aspects of how we live, this feels normal to us.

(lighthearted music) I felt like it was an experiment.

And I was interested in the experiment.

(popping) (lighthearted music) Earlier lesbian land, I think that that was more driven by getting away from the mainstream culture, because those were difficult times.

It's hard for people to understand, but here's one of my best examples.

In my early feminist days, I did work in the Rape Crisis Center and we go to the police station and talk to the police about rape and how it was handled and the officer in charge of sexual crimes, not that there was a department yet, 'cause there wasn't, but he said, the problem is figuring out whether or not she's making it up or she's was actually raped.

And I said, "Well, how do you decide?"

And he said, "Well, if she knows the guy, she's clearly making it up."

That was like a normal thing.

He didn't think he was being controversial at all.

So it's hard for people to understand why it would be so appealing to get away from the mainstream world at that time.

But it was appealing to do that.

There is still appeal.

I would be more open about where we are and tell you the name of the land, but I'm respectful of the fact that there's a consensus on that.

Right?

And that others feel quite strongly that we're smarter to be careful.

Is it farfetched to think that there are people who might be pissed off at lesbians, because their wife decided to become one or their sister or their mother or just because they think we're undermining the family values of something or something, right, who aren't our local neighbors, who are respectful, but are people who just are nuts and also have this opinion.

(lighthearted music) The real value of this environment is the land.

It's a very sense driven environment.

The wind, the birds, the sounds, the nature, the weather is bigger.

You're more with nature because there's so much space.

(lighthearted music) The idea of women having control of land or of, and of lesbians having control of land that they get to decide who comes on that land and what happens on that land, is extremely powerful.

It's empowering, not only to us, and there's safety for us in numbers, but it's also empowering to the women who come and visit us, to know that even if that isn't what they want, to know that women can do this, that it's happening, that there's spaces like that.

I think make a huge difference to an awful lot of people.

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