As a department, we strive to work in partnership to protect and serve our community with honor, integrity and professionalism. We do this through building trusting relationships with residents and businesses in Lenexa.
If our community has a critical incident, you will find updated information below.
Critical incidents involving police officers from Johnson County law enforcement agencies, including Lenexa, are investigated by the Johnson County multi-jurisdictional Officer Involved Critical Incident Investigation Team (OICIIT – pronounced “o-sit”). This includes officer-involved shootings, in-custody deaths or other lethal force situations.
OICIIT is a group comprised of well-trained, professional investigators from law enforcement agencies across Johnson County. While we do have members of our department that serve on the OICIIT, those members are excluded when an investigation directly involves one of our officers, which is standard OICIIT practice.
The OICIIT’s task is to conduct a thorough and independent review of the facts of a particular case and document them. This includes interviewing involved officers, witnesses, and victims. This also includes reviewing evidence such as officer's body-worn cameras, in-car camera footage and any existing security or surveillance camera footage.
Our role is to ensure that members of the OICIIT have free and open access to whatever they need for their investigation, including police reports, body camera footage, interviews of all involved persons and anything else they deem necessary for their investigation.
Upon completion of the OICIIT investigation, their report is sent to the Johnson County District Attorney’s Office for review. Ultimately, it is the Johnson County District Attorney that makes the determination as to whether an officer’s actions were legally justified.
In addition to, but separate from the OICIIT investigation, we conduct an internal administrative investigation to investigate if officer’s actions were ethical and within department policy.