KANSAS CITY, Mo. — An Overland Park police officer, who was convicted of felony breach of privacy for repeatedly taking video of a woman in the shower without her permission and admitted to stealing women’s underwear while on the job, worked as a security officer at a local hospital for 16 months despite his conviction.
Jared Kendrick — who worked as an unarmed security guard from Nov. 2, 2020, to Feb. 21, 2022, at AdventHealth in Shawnee — was charged in November 2020 with five counts of felony breach of privacy.
He also admitted to several lewd acts during his service as a police officer, which were detailed in a summary of the revocation of Kendrick’s law enforcement certification.
Overland Park police confirmed Friday that Kendrick served as a patrol officer with the department from June 9, 2008, until July 31, 2020, when he was fired after an internal investigation after a woman made a complaint to another department.
"The Overland Park Police Department takes all allegations against our officers very seriously. Especially when an alleged crime is perpetrated against law enforcement officers or in the line of duty," an Overland Park police spokesperson said in an email to KSHB 41. The Overland Park Police Department fully cooperated with all investigations and conducted its own internal investigation that ultimately resulted in Jared Kendrick's termination."
A Shawnee Police Department investigation uncovered five videos of an adult female in the shower that were produced without her consent between Sept. 18, 2016, and Nov. 20, 2016, according to a criminal complaint.
The woman, who is not being named due to the nature of the crimes, also caught Kendrick, 37, “trying to take nude photographs of her under a door with his cell phone,” according to the sworn affidavit that underpinned the criminal charges.
Kendrick — who spent more than 12 years on the Overland Park police force from June 9, 2008, to July 31, 2020 — entered therapy for sexual addiction in 2019, according to a Johnson County court filing.
As part of his treatment, he admitted to making the videos and promised to delete them, but he did not.
After the woman discovered the undeleted videos and contacted Shawnee police in June 2020, Kendrick told investigators that the woman consented to him recording the videos, which she denied.
Under the terms of an April 7, 2021, plea agreement, Kendrick pleaded guilty to one count of breach of privacy and the other four counts were dropped.
He also was placed on 18 months of supervised probation from June 15, 2021, through Dec. 15, 2022, which allowed him to avoid serving an eight-month jail term, per Johnson County court records.
The Kansas Commission on Peace Officers’ Standards and Training moved to revoke Kendrick’s certification after his June 2021 sentencing.
According to the commission’s Summary Order of Revocation, Kendrick admitted in an interview with Overland Park police to a pattern of disturbing behavior while on-duty.
Among Kendrick’s admissions, he took a pair of women’s underwear from a residence while responding to a call and put them in his pocket, on another occasion he picked up a woman’s underwear from inside a vehicle and smelled them before putting them back down, and he also had picked up female officers’ dirty laundry and smelled the crotch of their uniform pants.
A felony conviction is grounds for revocation of a law enforcement certification under Kansas law.
The commission concluded that Kendrick’s “conduct shows that he lacks the personal qualities of integrity, honesty, upholding the laws of the state, conduct that warrants the public trust, and upholding the oath required for certification” in an Aug. 31, 2021, revocation notice.
His wife filed for divorce in July 2020 and the marriage was dissolved Nov. 9, 2021.
Three months after leaving the Overland Park Police Department — and eight days before his Nov. 10, 2020, arrest on the breach of privacy charges — Kendrick started working at AdventHealth, which confirmed that he passed a pre-employment background check.
“All AdventHealth employees must pass a background check, conducted prior to their start of employment,” a spokesperson for the hospital said via email to KSHB 41 News. “Beyond confirmation of employment, we do not release additional information about any former employee due to privacy concerns.”
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