Wichita officer who changed answer on form before Cedric Lofton’s death loses license
A former Wichita police officer who changed his answers on a form to leave Cedric “CJ” Lofton at a juvenile lockup where the 17-year-old died after corrections workers held him to the floor for nearly 40 minutes has had his police license revoked.
The Kansas Commission on Peace Officers’ Standards and Training, which oversees officer certifications, posted the four-page revocation for Ryan O’Hare on Feb. 20.
The KSCPOST documents usually specify the reason for revocation; O’Hare’s does not.
KSCPOST executive director Doug Schroeder said that it is because O’Hare was not interviewed for the organization’s investigation.
“[O ‘Hare] declined to be interviewed and therefore did not cooperate with the Commission investigation,” the revocation summary read.
In a phone call, Schroeder said the “underlying initial reason that we requested an interview I cannot disclose.”
O’Hare, who worked for the Wichita Police Department from Aug. 10, 2020 to Oct. 17, 2022, could not be reached by The Eagle for comment.
His lawyer, Jess Hoeme, said O’Hare didn’t answer questions because he was leaving the state and law enforcement and the issue was moot. He said nothing nefarious should be drawn from his client not answering questions.
When asked about O’Hare’s investigation after he changed answers on a form, Jess Hoeme said:
“Anyone that is looking to explain Mr. Lofton’s death should look to the (Sedgwick County Juvenile Intake Assessment Center),” he said. “You can draw any inferences from it that you want but I would suggest that you don’t draw any adverse inferences from him because he left law enforcement and he left Kansas.”
Hoeme said his client was “pushed out” of the police department following Lofton’s death.
The investigation, according to KSCPOST, started because O’Hare may have “engaged in unprofessional conduct” as defined by rules and regulations of the organization.
KSCPOST can revoke an officer’s certification if the officer “knowingly submitted false or misleading documents” or “provides false information or otherwise fails to cooperate in a commission investigation,” according to the Kansas Law Enforcement Training Act.
The night Lofton died, his foster father had called 911 requesting a mental health evaluation for him. Instead, he was arrested and taken to juvenile lockup.
O’Hare originally checked “yes” on a Sedgwick County Juvenile Intake Assessment Center form, which would have prompted that Lofton be taken to the hospital. He changed his answers after consulting with other officers.
The change led to a fatal encounter with officers at the intake center.
County officials, family members, juvenile advocates and at least one Wichita police officer on the night of the arrest said Lofton should have been taken to a hospital for an evaluation, court records show.
Those records stem from an ongoing civil lawsuit brought by Lofton’s brother, which names as defendants O’Hare, other Wichita police officers who interacted with Lofton that night and the county corrections officers who held the teen down.
In an email obtained by The Eagle in 2023, Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett said he was unable to file criminal charges against O’Hare because he could not prove the officer intentionally lied on the form.
Contributing: Matthew Kelly of The Eagle
