Michael Cripe
Special to the Citizen
The North Kansas City Police Department is getting a new chief of police this month, and he’s got quite a bit of history to back him up.
Self-described as a “lifelong Northlander,” Major Kevin Freeman will serve his first day in the position on Monday, Jan. 13. Even with the next step on the horizon, working in law enforcement is far from a new experience for him.
After taking some electives in high school, the soon-to-be police chief transitioned to Maple Woods Community College to further discover his interest in the criminal justice field with an associate’s degree. Park University is where his desires truly settled in, as Freeman later went on to achieve his bachelor’s and master’s degrees there. Serving now for nearly 23 years, Freeman has made a home of the station just north of downtown Kansas City.
But life protecting the outer rim of Missouri’s most populated city wasn’t always one of his goals. In fact, before returning to school for his master’s, Freeman originally had his sights set on small-town life.
“I really never had a desire to work in a big city,” Freeman said. “I wanted to work in one of the smaller cities in the metropolitan area. I wasn’t necessarily looking directly at North Kansas City, but I was very fortunate that they selected me when they did.”
Something was missing after securing the unexpected though. While becoming a police officer was a goal he desired for nearly a decade, Freeman felt there was more he could do to improve his abilities as a public servant.
“I was mentored by a Park University instructor — who was one of our commanders then — to go back to school to obtain my master’s degree,” Freeman said. “Shortly after I was promoted to sergeant here, I re-enrolled in Park to start obtaining my master’s degree and almost exclusively took the online courses, which worked well for me being a police officer with an odd schedule.”
Freeman says his extra education is what led him to obtaining his current and oncoming position. To really seal the deal during this timeframe, the major also attended the FBI National Academy, a police leadership school in Quantico, Va. Sessions for the academy are held four times a year and see 200 students from around the world learning how to operate police organizations. Networking, though, is what Freeman says was his biggest takeaway from his time there, as when he returned home to Kansas City, he took his skills and used them to build out his local network.
With plenty of skills at his disposal, the transition to police chief has been a pretty seamless process since being chosen.
The one challenge Freeman foresees posing as the biggest obstacle is the ever-shrinking number of citizens interested in joining the force.
“When I started 20-plus years ago, more than 100 people would show up for one position,” Freeman said. “Those numbers have dwindled considerably. People just don’t look to public service for jobs anymore.”
Above all, making sure the department succeeds and then continues to succeed is what Freeman is striving for.
“I’ve spent my career here; I have no desire to go anywhere else,” Freeman said. “I’m invested in this department. I want it to succeed. I’m a competitive person by nature, and I want everything I’m a part of to be the best, and I want the North Kansas City Police Department to be considered the best police department in this region.”
Starting this month, the North Kansas City Police Department is going to aim to maintain an approachable attitude. Freeman wants to be able to “work to a common ground” if anyone has any issues with the department so that a universal answer can be more easily achieved. This sense of community was born out of his time at Park University, a period which he calls a valuable resource.
“Park University is a hidden gem,” Freeman said. “Obviously the people of Parkville know all about it, but it’s not probably well known throughout the region and the metropolitan area. It gave me the tools that I needed as a foundation to start building my career, and I always look back on the work that I did, especially on my master’s program when I was preparing to go to the national academy and when I was preparing for the police chief’s process. Those tools were always there, and I really appreciate the opportunity I was given with Park University.
With his own wealth of knowledge obtained in Parkville and the proper intellectual nourishment it encouraged, Freeman positioned himself as the ideal candidate to be North Kansas City’s chief of police.