Lawsuit alleges Kansas City police kicked in door and seized $20K in illegal search
A woman has filed a lawsuit against Kansas City police alleging that officers illegally searched her home when they kicked down her door in 2020.
In her lawsuit, Monecia Smith claimed that officers damaged her personal property and seized $20,000 during the “unlawful” search.
The series of events began in January 2020, when Smith was awoken by someone knocking on her door after midnight. She looked through her surveillance video system and saw a person who she believed had been shot. She did not answer the door.
A detective later told Smith he was going to obtain the video, but she was “concerned for her safety” and did not let him come into her home, her lawyer wrote.
Within a day or two, officers executed a warrant when Smith was not at her home on Benton Boulevard. They kicked in her front door and caused “significant damage” to her residence, according to her lawsuit.
Smith drove home once she learned officers were there. As she pulled in, according to her lawsuit, she and her daughter were “confronted” by officers with guns drawn. An officer can be heard on video calling her a swear word.
“She was jeered by unknown police officers with profanity by specifically calling her a ‘b—’ on the ‘Ring doorbell’ several times,” according to her lawsuit.
Smith’s attorney, Brian Klopfenstein, said Smith cooperated by allowing detectives to take blood samples off of her door. After the search, she alerted the department that a “substantial” amount of money was missing from her bedroom, he said.
“She immediately did everything she had to to put them on notice” about the missing money, Klopfenstein said. “But nothing ever came from it.”
After Smith contacted members of the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners — which oversees the department — they “acknowledged” the officers acted inappropriately and decided disciplinary action was required, according to Smith’s lawsuit.
Smith has since been diagnosed with PTSD and suffers from emotional distress, her attorney wrote in the lawsuit. She now gets nervous whenever she sees a KCPD officer.
Capt. Corey Carlisle, a police spokesman, said the department generally does not comment on pending litigation to “ensure fairness for all parties involved.”
The Missouri Attorney General’s Office, which is representing the police board, denied the allegations in court and asked a judge to throw out the lawsuit.
In 2020, Smith told The Star’s Editorial Board she did not hand over the surveillance footage to police because she was skeptical of the department and cited the fatal shootings of unarmed Black men by its officers. However, she said she allowed a member of the shooting victim’s family to view the video.
“My family, we live in fear,” Smith told the Editorial Board of the police. “Why should we trust them?”
Smith’s lawsuit names members of the police board, former Police Chief Rick Smith, current Police Chief Stacey Graves and other state employees as defendants.
The petition was initially filed in January in Jackson County Circuit Court, but it was transferred this month to the U.S. District Court in the Western District of Missouri.
