The Wichita Police and the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office have teamed up to establish a new Advanced Law Enforcement Response Team (ALERT) that will have sole responsibility for investigations when an officer or a deputy is involved in a critical incident.
Police Chief Joe Sulllivan said the team will incorporate the industry’s best standards to maintain public trust and adherence to high standards.
Sheriff Jeff Easter said District Attorney Marc Bennett suggested such a team when he was elected in 2012, but that “it just didn’t work out for whatever reason” until Sullivan became chief of police in November 2022.
“We discussed it and we were both in agreement that it would be best for this community because this community has been asking for a change in how we investigate these critical incidents,” Easter said.
Sullivan said ALERT uses both police and sheriff’s department protocols in place “to conduct an independent and transparent investigation.” The police team will investigate sheriff’s incidents and the sheriff’s team will investigate incidents involving the WPD.
Prior to the agreement, the WPD and sheriff would investigate for their own agency and the Kansas Bureau of Investigation would provide oversight, according to Police Lt. Aaron Moses.
Now, the new team will independently investigate and present results directly to the district attorney.
Exceptions to the new rule will be deaths of prisoners at the Sedgwick County Jail. Kansas Law requires those to automatically trigger KBI involvement.
The team of police detectives and sheriff’s deputies has already completed training from the Association of Force Investigators and has completed two investigations: an officer-involved shooting in Maize last month and another by the WPD this month.
