More than $10.7 million dollars in Kansas City, Missouri, tax dollars have been paid in lawsuit settlements involving the police department in the current budget year.
More than $10.7 million dollars in Kansas City, Missouri, tax dollars have been paid in lawsuit settlements involving the police department in the current budget year.
And more money is being set aside as part of the proposal for the next budget year, which begins May 1.
Updated: 7:28 PM CST Feb 18, 2026 Andy Alcock KMBC 9 News Reporter
More than $10.7 million dollars in Kansas City, Missouri, tax dollars have been paid in lawsuit settlements involving the police department in the current budget year. And more money is being set aside as part of the proposal for the next budget year, which begins May 1.
Ricky Kidd spent 23 years of his life in prison for a 1996 double murder, a judge ruled he didn't commit."I'm humbled. It's a reflective moment for me today. I'm sure later, when I get by myself and, it probably be emotional moment," Kidd said in 2019.
In this current budget year, KCPD paid out $4.2 million in Kidd's lawsuit.The suit was based on Kidd's claim that KCPD officers failed to properly investigate Kidd's case.According to court records, one of the victim's 4-year-old daughters witnessed the murder and positively identified the killer, who wasn't Kidd, in a series of pictures.
KCPD has also paid out $1.75 million in a wrongful death lawsuit.That one involves now former KCPD Officer Blayne Newton, who fatally shot Marcel Nelson and Kristen Fairchild in 2023.Newton was paid $50,000 to resign from the police force on Friday.
He'd also been investigated and sued for excessive force for the 2020 death of Donnie Sanders.
"There's enough there to show that he's got a propensity for violence," said John Picerno, the attorney who filed the wrongful death lawsuit in the Nelson-Fairchild case. Picerno said Newton emptied his clip into a van, killing Nelson and Fairchild and grazing Nelson's nephew.
He also said he's been involved in several KCPD lawsuit settlements involving bad police behavior. "Nobody taught them to do the things that they're doing out there on the street. They're running, recklessly out there on the street of their own volition," Picerno said. It's incumbent upon the leaders in any police department in the United States of America to rein these guys back in."
The KCPD settlements proposal for the next budget year, beginning May 1, is $6.5 million.That amount is more than double the $2.5 million the city budgeted for KCPD settlements in the current fiscal year and has already exceeded by more than $8 million.The $6.5 million proposal is more money than the $5.7 million planned for snow removal in the next budget. And it comes as a proposed $6.4 million cut to the city manager's budget, including a $1 million cut to security in entertainment districts. There's also a proposed $1.3 million cut for "Vision Zero", a city program designed to stop traffic fatalities.
Criminal defense attorney Henry Service said the settlements budget shows there's a problematic element to KCPD policing."The police in Kansas City are notoriously abusive and notoriously corrupt. That's been my experience," he said.
The total settlement in the Nelson-Fairchild wrongful death case is $3.5 million.By agreement, half of that money will be paid in the next budget year.
Earlier this month, KCPD Chief Stacey Graves said the far-over-budget settlements in the current fiscal year were part of the reason for a department-wide memo to cut down on unnecessary overtime, equipment purchases, and clerical staff hiring.