Jay-Z's Team Roc is suing the Kansas City Police Department
Jay-Z's Team Roc—the "philanthropic and social justice division" of the mogul's Roc Nation entertainment company—is fighting for justice in Kansas City, Kansas. Per NBC News, the company just filed a suit against the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department (KCKPD) and the Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas, for failing to "timely produce" law enforcement records relating to decade-long allegations of police brutality and misconduct.
"For decades, communities in Kansas City, Kansas—particularly minority and immigrant communities—have been subjected to an alarming pattern of abuse and other serious misconduct by the KCKPD," Team Roc's suit reads. "Rather than promoting a culture of transparency and accountability, the KCKPD has a long history of turning a blind eye to (at best) and even covering up (if not worse) abusive and/or corrupt conduct by its officers."
The suit goes on to claim that the two organizations "stonewalled" Team Roc for nearly a year, even after they paid $2,200 to access the documents under the Kansas Open Records Act. The filing does say the company was given nearly 225 documents, but most of them contain low-stakes information like officer shifts and assignments. None of them were related to "any complaint or investigation into even a single instance of misconduct by any member of the KCKPD" as requested, the suit alleges.
While the state's public records law does allow that certain documents may be held from review, Team Roc alleges that their request was denied in "broad, undifferentiated strokes" that "failed to distinguish between records relating to pending and closed investigations and failed to acknowledge that virtually all legitimate privacy concerns could be resolved through redactions."
Per NBC, Team Roc began putting pressure on the KCKPD after learning that the FBI had been investigating allegations of police misconduct in the city for years, but actual action and prosecution was rare. In 2022, the organization took out a full page ad calling for an investigation in The Washington Post, and their attorney wrote a letter to the Justice Department alleging that a "blue wall of silence" had allowed the police department's crimes to go unreported for decades.
"When good faith efforts are met with bad faith tactics, the fight for transparency continues in court. Truth deserves no less. The people of Kansas City, Kansas, deserve no less," Team Roc declared in a statement about the suit on their website. Managing director Dania Diaz also added to NBC, "This filing is because human beings with badges have betrayed the public's trust… That type of behavior must be held to a standard."