Lucas raises concerns about Trump’s ‘dog-whistling’ as federal Operation Legend expands
Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas expressed concern Wednesday afternoon about the widening scope of federal law enforcement in Kansas City and racial “dog-whistling” in President Donald Trump’s rhetoric about crime in cities.
Lucas said he’s spoken this week with both Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller, whose cities will soon see an influx of federal law enforcement officers under Operation Legend, a Department of Justice initiative that launched this month in Kansas City.
All three mayors share “concerns that the operation could expand beyond as it’s been described,” Lucas said.
“What we don’t support is an expanded and broadened mission, which is what we’ve seen in Portland and what we’ve seen hinted at in interviews from the president that look like a federal takeover of policing in Kansas City,” Lucas said.
Lucas, who is African American, said Trump was “exploiting the pain of our particularly Black community” during an election year.
“I do have concerns with the president’s racial undertones in his rhetoric. When I was growing up they used to call it dog-whistling. I think the president has exceeded that,” Lucas said. “It’s frustrating to me.”
The federal agents responding to protests in Portland are from the Department of Homeland Security, while agents involved in Operation Legend are from the Department of Justice.
Lucas said Kansas City would welcome federal help in tracing weapons and other activities related to solving homicides, such as the murder LeGend Taliferro, the 4-year-old boy whose death in June spurred the operation and its name.
“We want to solve murders. I want murderers off the streets,” he said.
But concerns have already arisen that the operation has started to extend beyond its stated purpose of helping solve murders and deter violent crime in Kansas City based on the first arrest resulting from the operation.
The first arrest resulting from the operation this week was of a suspect found in a stolen car involved in an unrelated non-homicide case.
“If this mission seems to change and expand, and I think that’s what people are talking about with the arrest that was made yesterday, then that will be more troubling,” Lucas said.
Lucas said he would have liked more advance notice of the operation before it was announced by the White House earlier this month. But he added he has been in daily communication with U.S. Attorney Tim Garrison and other relevant federal officials since the announcement.
Lucas is hopeful that the mission will adhere to the narrow description he has received from federal officials. But Trump’s rhetoric about Democratic-run cities with large minority populations has caused concern.
“We’re not going to let New York and Chicago and Philadelphia and Detroit and Baltimore and all of these — Oakland is a mess. We’re not going to let this happen in our country. All run by liberal Democrats,” Trump said Monday.
Lucas said neither Republicans nor Democrats should want a federal takeover of policing.
Kansas City is also unique among large cities in that the police are overseen by a panel appointed by the state’s governor rather than the city government. Lucas has pushed for local control.
Kansas City government is officially nonpartisan, but Lucas, elected last year, ran on a progressive platform and generally aligns with the Democratic Party.
City Council wary of operation
Members of the City Council share Lucas’ concern that the operation could go beyond its initial purpose.
Councilwoman Melissa Robinson, 3rd District, said she’s not supportive of federal law enforcement in Kansas City “to do our work” solving violent crimes. But she said she had not received any information that indicates officers are acting “outside the vein of what the intention is.”
Robinson said because her district, which encompasses much of the city’s East Side, is so heavily impacted by crime and has been vocal about community-police relations, she is concerned and paying attention to the way the federal officers are deployed.
“People are on high alert. There is fear, and we need to just ensure we’re focused on solving violent crime.”
Councilwoman Katheryn Shields, who chairs the council’s Finance, Governance and Public Safety Committee, said Operation Legend was “all a bad idea.”
Shields, 4th District at-large, said she had no problem with the FBI providing backup support to local law enforcement to solve violen crimes, but that “we don’t need any federal officers out on the street doing anything.”
She said federal law enforcement officials deployed in Washington, D.C. and Portland have done “nothing to preserve the peace and make the public safer.”
“And I am very concerned about federalizing local law enforcement,” Shields said. “I think that is not only a mistake, I think it’s a first step toward having a dictatorship, and I personally do not support that.”
Shields agreed with Lucas that Trump’s “dog-whistle” remarks were concerning. Asked if there were certain remarks that troubled her, she said there are “just too many to talk about.”
“Locking up immigrant children,” Shields said, referring to the Trump administration’s policy separating children and parents who arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border, many seeking asylum. “That’s not a quote, it’s an action, and it’s a horrible abominable action that our president has taken because of his racism.”
McClatchy’s Michael Wilner contributed to this report.
This story was originally published July 22, 2020 at 2:00 PM with the headline "Lucas raises concerns about Trump’s ‘dog-whistling’ as federal Operation Legend expands."
