It coulda been worse, activist Ron McMillan says. When the police pulled him over last Friday night, they could have forced him to lie on the ground, despite his bad back. When they arrested him, they could have left him to be gassed to death in the back of a defective paddy wagon whose prisoner compartment filled up with exhaust fumes, instead of noticing the problem and calling for a new wagon.
McMillan is grateful that the KCPD didn’t make more egregious mistakes, but the fact that he was arrested for stealing his own car is still troublesome.
McMillan, a well-known community activist who has worked for Move-UP and now directs cleaning crews to pick up litter along Prospect Avenue for the Kansas City Crime Commission, was returning home around 11 p.m. on Friday, September 28. He saw flashing lights behind him as he was driving along Hardesty and 9th Street, so he pulled over. The officer took a long time to come to McMillan’s window, so McMillan got his license and registration ready. Then the officer got out of his car, unholstered his firearm and yelled for McMillan to put his hands in view and get out of his van, a flat-blue 1996 Dodge Caravan.
“If my hands are up, it’s hard to get out of the car,” McMillan says. “I very delicately had to undo my seatbelt and get out… I stood there like, here we go again, my worst nightmare. You’re stuck out there at their mercy, and that’s a dangerous place to be.”
The officer told McMillan he was driving a stolen vehicle, and that he should get on the ground to be handcuffed.
As a matter of fact, McMillan’s car was stolen – from him, the Sunday before Father’s Day. The police recovered it a week later, from behind a housing development five miles from McMillan’s home. When McMillan signed the paperwork to get his car back and retrieved it from the city tow lot, he assumed the case would be cleared from the police’s computers.
He would have liked to explain all this to Officer Kevin Colhour, but Colhour wasn’t having any of it.
“When an officer and I can communicate, we have no problem,” McMillan says. “But I get Robocop, and he’s relying on his computer like it’s DNA or something. He coulda killed me.… He was adamant that his computer was correct.”
Colhour, by then joined by other officers, loaded McMillan in the back of a white police van, but moved him after McMillan started coughing and they noticed that the exhaust fumes from the tailpipe were leaking into the back chamber.
McMillan was driven to the KCPD headquarters at 12th and Locust and dumped into a holding cell where a dozen other men slept on a concrete floor. Eventually, he was notified that he was being charged – with a traffic ticket he had failed to pay in 2001. When McMillan asked about the stolen car, he was informed that detectives had realized that they’d arrested the same person who had reported the car stolen.
“There was no apology, nothing,” McMillan says. “They got me on this old ticket, so that justified it all for them.”
By now it was early Saturday morning. McMillan tried to reach several friends to help him get out of jail, but no one answered the jail’s collect calls. Finally McMillan got ahold of a friend who agreed to go to an ATM and withdraw $243 to pay off the 2001 ticket. The friend picked him up, but he couldn’t take him home – McMillan’s house keys and his van were at the city tow lot, which doesn’t open until 9 a.m. At 9, the tow lot staffer wouldn’t allow McMillan to get his van until he showed her his registration – which was, of course, in the glove compartment of his van. She wouldn’t let him open his van to show her the registration without his title. A few more trips and $145 later, McMillan was back in action – a full 12 hours after he was detained the night before.
McMillan finally made it home Saturday, collapsed on his couch and hit the “play” button on his answering machine. There were two messages from the KCPD, both telling him that they’d recovered his stolen vehicle.
KCPD spokesman Captain Rich Lockhart says he doesn’t think stolen car mix-ups like McMillan’s happen very often. “More commonly it’s going to happen if someone gets their car back and forgets to tell us and they get stopped,” he says.
McMillan plans to speak in front of the Board of Police Commissioners to address his concerns about officers’ computer records not being updated. He also wants to speak with them about more open means of communication on the streets.
“I understand they got these young bucks jumping out of cars with guns and these rolling gun battles,” McMillan says. “With the whole level of the black male encounter with police this summer, I don’t blame them for being cautious and securing the situation. But once I’m secured, if I’m not arguing, and they’re like, ‘Shut up,’ I have a problem with not being able to communicate.” – Nadia Pflaum
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How can you idiots comment on someone that you do not know. That is what is wrong with this country today. Do you remember them playing this story on channel 5 news, because it shows the officer doing nothing wrong and the audio and video is clear as day. These comments just prove that they are just as bad as the people the officer's in the city are trying to get off the street.
The officer in this case quite possibly has a college degree. However, the officer is probably not from the Kansas City area. In the past, KCPD has been populated by young men and women who have no ties or sense of the city prior to their indoctrination into the force. This officer seems to have no common sense and the citizens of his patrol area are victims of his lack of experience with the public.
It sounds as though the incident occurred in the East patrol area where, like most other areas in the city, the more experienced officers are at home and asleep during the evening hours.
The article also lets anyone who has ever seen Ron McMillan know that the officer is an insecure individual with control issues and a limited ability to utilize observation and critical thinking.
Ron has not been, nor will he ever be a threatening physical presence, especially once handcuffed. He's rapidly approaching 50. Maybe it was his hat....More and more it seems that our beloved KCPD officers are focused on getting back to the station house for coffee and pastries rather than participate in policing and resolving issues within their responsibilities.
This incident is not unique. The divide between the police and the community will continue to remain unbridged.
I want to make it clear that I did not mean to offend anyone. I was only stating an opinion. I can admit was not thought out as well as it should have been. I see both Lonnie, Johnathon and Husband's points.
Let me attempt to clarify my take on this. I myself did not finish college the first time I went. I did take Psychology and Sociology though. I am now back at college and working towards a degree. When I say I thought police officers had to be college educated I was relating it more to the criminal justice degree and the experiences itself that college provides. I agree that college will not teach you street smarts or common sense. These skills are acquired through life experiences. I know many people that are college educated that don't have a clue how the world works.
I also have to agree that some college graduates are not the brightest people I know or work with (believe me!). Being good at studying and taking tests does not guarantee a person is "well-educated". It is a fact though, that college educated individuals are more fluent in areas that require critical thinking and most (but definitely not all) are not as likely to rush to judgment about a situation, person, etc. as was done in the article that spawned these comments.
The preconceived notions this officer had about the individual heavily influenced how he handled the entire situation. He may have had good reason to be suspect about what he was being told, but he was irrational and quick to judge. A simple verification could have spared this poor man from humiliation as well as saved the officer lost time and effort. Telling someone to "shut up" instead of listening to what they have to say virtually proves that the officer had no interest in what was happening and had already judged this man a criminal. Nothing was going to change his mind, especially not the truth.
Psychology 101 - where we learn why chronic under-achievers who don't have college degrees and have never enjoyed success think that having a college degree isn't important.
It isn't the pedigree - it is the experience and maturity and the critical thinking that many (most?) college graduates develop.
As for the Psychology and Sociology classes, I have taken both of these during my college career. They did not teach us anything about stupid people. Cops deal with alot of stupid people everyday. They also don't teach anything about crackheads, drug dealers, drunks, or criminals willing to do anything it takes to prevent going back to jail. Seems these classes might be a little lacking......
In response to A bit surprised:
What exactly, do street smarts, common sense, and quick thinking have to do with college? The stupidest people I have met have been either college students and graduates, without fail. I used to work in a bank. Half of the bank managers in my region had no college diploma. Some people still recognize that 4 years sitting in a classroom does not equal life experience and common sense. Sometimes it does, but not necessarily.
I dropped out of college yet I tend to be wiser and know more about life than my friends who were continually on the honor roll and in the advanced courses.
I do agree they should be required to take some psychology and sociology, but beyond that I think it would prevent so many people from becoming cops who want to, that there would be a shortage. It's the same thing we have with the armed forces. If youlimited sign-ups only to the college educated you would have almost none. It takes a certain type of person. Besides, how many people who are college educated want to work long hours sitting in a car or walking dangerous streets in inclement weather?
Police officers are required to go to the POLICE ACADEMY. That is THEIR college. Interesting fact, All those mechanics you have repairing your breaks every time you take your car into the shop??? Not college graduates!!! They have an ACADEMY of their own. They should probably be required to have a college education as well, so that you could pay $200/hr for their services instead of the $55 - $75/hr you pay for mechanic services.
Police officers are not required to be college graduates? Are you serious? I'm afraid I had no idea... I had always just assumed police officers had to be college educated just like anyone else who carries great responsibility. You have to be a college graduate to even be a high level administrative assistant at most companies I know of, but you can make life and death decisions, about people you don't even know, with just a GED? Something just doesn't sound right about that.
Is anyone really surprised at this story? Until police officers are required to be college/university graduates and have additional classes in psychology, sociology and customer service we will continue to have these stories where under-chievers pass through the academy and are granted a gun and a badge.
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