Wichita detective joked about T-shirt for record homicides. Union appeals discipline
The Wichita police union wants a judge to overturn the city manager’s suspension of a detective who texted about designing a T-shirt to commemorate a record number of homicides, according to court documents filed Monday.
“Police officers use humor as a means of dealing with the trauma that police officers observe and experience because of the nature of their work,” the Fraternal Order of Police wrote in the court document.
The FOP is also asking a judge to reimburse detective Kevin McKenna for the eight-day suspension.
The FOP said it appealed the suspension to an arbitrator, who disagreed with the suspension and said it should be overturned, removed from McKenna’s record and the detective reimbursed for lost wages.
However, City Manager Robert Layton upheld the suspension, the FOP wrote.
“We can’t comment on pending litigation,” spokesperson Megan Lovely said.
An FOP official said its attorney would reach out with a comment, but no one did.
More than a dozen Wichita officers, including McKenna, were disciplined after a text-message scandal in the department showed that the previous police administration gave little punishment for officers who sent racist and inappropriate messages.
The names of multiple officers have been publicly reported, but McKenna hadn’t been previously named. The document links him to the messages.
The messages about the record homicides had not been reported before.
The messages were found when investigators searched former Sedgwick County Sgt. Justin Maxfield’s phone in April 2021 in connection with a domestic violence case. Most of the messages were between members of the Wichita and Sedgwick County SWAT team.
McKenna originally was given coaching and mentoring for a text thread with Maxfield in which he mentioned “Jamaican gooney hooks.” During an arbitration hearing, he testified that his comment referred to Maxfield making fun of how McKenna boxed, the FOP wrote.
McKenna’s comment about the record number of homicides was found later, when the police department reopened the case after The Eagle reported about the messages and the lack of discipline.
There were about 15,000 messages to review, the FOP wrote. The messages included officers aligning with the extremist militia group the Three Percenters and a photoshopped image of a naked man sitting on George Floyd’s head. That image was sent by two officers.
The messages about the record homicides were between McKenna, Maxfield and other Wichita officers, the FOP wrote.
“McKenna facetiously remarked that he had designed a T-shirt to commemorate the record,” the FOP wrote. “McKenna did not design such a T-shirt and had no intent to design one. His comment was intended to use humor to deal with the unfortunate circumstances surrounding a potential record number of homicides.”
It’s unclear when the message was sent. Wichita had a record year for homicides in 2020 with 59. McKenna did not immediately respond to an email.
The city “alleged that the text messages glorified violence,” the FOP wrote.
The FOP appealed the suspension — as it did for other officers who were suspended after the department reopened the case.
A grievance board — composed of arbitrator Ronald Iacovetta, officer Nathan Schweithale for the FOP and Capt. Travis Rakestraw for the city — reviewed the case in a Sept. 14, 2023, hearing.
Iacovetta wrote the opinion for the board on Feb. 21, according to the FOP.
“The Arbitrator found that the City had failed to meet its burden of proof that McKenna had engaged in conduct unbecoming an officer,” the FOP wrote. “The arbitrator first held that the exchange of text messages did not amount to unbecoming conduct. Instead, the exchange was an example of police humor which is useful in helping officers deal with the stressors particular to employment as police officers. The arbitrator also held that the imposition of a second discipline arising from the same batch of text messages that had been previously investigated amounted to double jeopardy.”
Iacovetta said that the discipline violated the union contract with the city, that it should be overturned, removed from McKenna’s record and the detective should be reimbursed for lost wages, the FOP wrote.
Layton disagreed and upheld the suspension, the FOP wrote.
The FOP said a police investigator also “concluded that the text messages sent by McKenna contained no derogatory comments toward any group, that the officers engaged in the text conversation had all found it necessary to use deadly force in the line of duty, that the comments about the t-shirt were intended to be facetious, and that the humor it represented was useful in helping officers deal with the stress of the job.”
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