A group of “whistleblowers” say a public corruption complaint has been filed with the Missouri Attorney General’s office about municipal leadership at Platte Woods.
A letter of complaint from unnamed city employees was sent to mayor John Smedley and the board of aldermen in September, alleging misconduct by Smedley and chief of police Jim Kerns. The unsigned five page letter was supported by an additional document detailing a total of 180 allegations of mismanagement.
Smedley said the board discussed the contents of the letter in a closed session meeting in September and investigated the claims made.
“We took it seriously,” Smedley said. “A lot of it was that the authors didn’t have an understanding of the statutes that govern municipal operations.”
According to Smedley, the board of aldermen again discussed the complaints at its November meeting and considered the matter closed.
The city’s response was not satisfactory to the whistleblowers, who said they have since filed a complaint with the state. The Missouri Attorney General’s office does not comment on the status of any complaints filed.
Smedley, who has served as mayor of Platte Woods for 15 years, said the city has not heard from the Missouri Attorney General’s office regarding any investigation.
The September letter, which was provided to the Citizen by the whistleblowers, states, “we are a number of officers of the department, hereby formally addressing these concerns and bringing them to the attention of you again and the city aldermen.”
According to these officers, Kerns has a side business as a bookkeeper, which takes up a substantial amount of time during on-duty hours. He also has a position with a fraternal organization that takes up his on-duty time. The officers say the requirements of modern policing have evolved beyond the chief’s capabilities and he does not observe the standard operating procedures of the department.
The Platte Woods police department is made up of three full time officers and 13 reserve part-time officers, Smedley said. Many of the part-time officers were hired after the city took on police services for the City of Lake Waukomis in October 2018. Smedley said he believes the complaints have arisen from officers new to the department and unfamiliar with operating procedures.
In the letter of complaint, the whistleblowers name Kerns and several other officers, alleging inappropriate conduct, mismanagement, preferential treatment and disregard for officer safety and procedure. The letter includes 12 general areas of concern, including failure to prosecute an assault case, forcing staff to use a police vehicle without proper lighting, mismanagement of expenses related to gasoline purchases, improper handling of evidence, cronyism and more.
In the supplemental paperwork, officers say records are not kept up to date and Lake Waukomis reports are inaccurate.
“Paper duty logs, Crimestar reports and other measures of our obligations to Lake Waukomis are not capable of being accurate due to human error and no auditing procedures,” the supplement states.
The six-page supplement numerically lists a variety of concerns, including the operation of a failing radar detector that led to incorrect speeding citations issued to drivers, failure of body camera systems and an allegation that officers were told to keep body cameras rolling during lunch and restroom breaks, mold in city facilities, missing ammunition and more.
Also in the supplement, whistleblowers state it was the lack of oversight and direction in a drug take-back program that led to the alleged theft of drugs by a former officer. According to court documents, the officer requested to delete a portion of his dash camera recording his visit to the Lake Waukomis Police Station, arousing suspicion.
Richard Langley, who was a part-time Platte Woods officer at the time, was charged with felony stealing in November 2018 after an investigation following a drug take-back event in Lake Waukomis. Langley faces a jury trial in July 2020, accused of stealing pills from the take-back event twice in the same week.
He pleaded not guilty to the charge in May and was bound over for trial.