Two police officers for the Kansas City, Kan., Police Department have been suspended.
The department confirms two of its officers were suspended this week. They are under a criminal investigation.
Both officers serve with the department's dignitary protection unit. It’s a relatively new program that’s beginning its second year. The unit’s job is to protect the mayor, commissioners, judges and other elected officials in Wyandotte County.
The January 2014 shooting death of 40-year-old Marlon Williams of Shawnee, Kansas, made police reassess the safety of those in and around City Hall.
In the first year, the the dignitary protection unit cost nearly $250,000 to operate.
Police did not comment on what exactly the officers are being investigated for.
“It's still a waste of money we don't have enough cameras over by where the judges are at, over where the sheriff department is,” Commissioner Mike Kane of District 5 said during a meeting last month.
That wasn’t the only controversy brought up.
“The mayor had taken the security guards to the bar that they were going to the church and sitting through his mass,” Commissioner Ann Brandau-Murguia of District 3 said.
Mayor Mark Holland clarified the circumstances.
“Yes they went down to Britt’s with me they did not have a beer - we should have a record - I did, they did not. They said, 'We don't need to be here' and they stopped coming,” Holland said.
Only one other city in the metro offers the mayor a security detail: across the state line in Kansas City, Missouri.
“They pick him [Mayor Sly James] up in the morning and they tuck him in bed at night and they go everywhere he goes,” Holland said.
KCPD didn’t want to give specifics about Mayor Sly James' security details as a precaution for his safety. But they said their officers have protected mayors for at least 40 years.
“I don't know how much more security I need. I like the guys, I think there's 12 people that provide me security at some point in time or another and I like each and everyone of them, they do a very good job,” James said last April.
The base salaries combined for the two full-time officers assigned to the mayor is $140,672. Total overtime for the two officers and relief officers is $182,828.07, making the total cost for the mayor’s security detail in 2015 to $323,500.07, according to the Kansas City Police Department.
A representative for Holland told 41 Action News there are additional officers assigned to the dignitary protection unit so the mayor still has security at the same events he would normally.
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Andres Gutierrez can be reached at andres.gutierrez@kshb.com.
