Five Black women recently filed a federal lawsuit against the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department (KCKPD), accusing several officers of engaging in unethical, violent, and abusive behavior targeting the Black community.
According to the women, the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City enabled the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department officers to engage in exploitative behavior while on the job, “including stalking, assaulting and raping Kansas City residents,” HuffPost reports.
The accused officers include former police chiefs Thomas Dailey, James Swafford, and Ronald Miller and former detectives Roger Golubski, Terry Zeigler, Michael Kill, Clayton Bye and Dennis Ware.
They were alleged to have exploited their positions, using badges and government-sanctioned power to torment and intimidate Black citizens. The suit draws a parallel between the officers’ actions and the Jim Crow era, highlighting the abuse of authority and the enforcement of racist practices.
“With government authority, a plague of State agents used their badges as licenses to stalk, assault, beat, rape, harass, frame, and threaten Black citizens in protected police hunting grounds,” according to the 138-page lawsuit per the HuffPost.
The suit, which was filed in early November, describes the officers as “dirty cops” who used their “badges to exploit Black women” and used “government-sanctioned power and terrorism” to silence and intimidate the plaintiffs.
In addition, it describes multiple encounters with Golubski, a former KCKPD homicide detective who retired in 2010. Over the last few years, Golubski has been the subject of misconduct allegations spanning from the 1990s to the 2000s.
All but one of the five plaintiffs have accused him of raping them, and he is already facing federal charges in separate cases related to rape, kidnapping, and collaboration with drug dealers decades earlier.
One federal lawsuit alleges that he raped and kidnapped two women while working as a police officer. The indictment alleges that Golubski told one of his victims after her twin sons were arrested for double murder in 1999 that he could help her. Golubski raped her multiple times in her home instead, according to the lawsuit.
A second federal indictment accuses him of collaborating with drug dealers to run a sex trafficking ring involving minors in the 1990s.
That lawsuit includes allegations that Golubski used his influence to convict Black men wrongfully and cites an instance where he allegedly framed a 16-year-old for a double homicide in 1994, leading to a 23-year prison sentence. The teen was later exonerated in 2022 and received a $12.5 million settlement. Golubski has pleaded not guilty to each of the crimes.
In a statement to HuffPost, William Skepnek, an attorney for the plaintiffs, called the accusations against Golubski and others “disgraceful.”
“It’s shameful that this is continuing to happen. It’s happening here, it’s happening now, and this sort of systemic corruption leads to the destruction of families and communities,” Skepnek said.
According to the HuffPost, the KCKPD declined to comment due to pending litigation.