SHAWNEE COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating two suspects on multiple charges after a brief high-speed chase.

Just before 11:30p.m. Sunday, a Shawnee County Sheriff’s Office deputy attempted to stop a pickup truck near NW 24 Highway and Rochester Road, according to sheriff's deputy Abigail Christian.&nbsp;

The pickup truck pulled into a parking lot and failed to yield. The Shawnee County Emergency Communications Center advised that the tag on the vehicle was not valid.

The vehicle drove back onto Rochester road and fled to the north. A pursuit was initiated and lasted approximately two minutes. The pursuit ended when the pickup truck pulled into a driveway on NW Wilder Road.

The driver of the pickup truck was identified as David W. Brooks, 54, of Topeka. He was arrested for the traffic charges and possession of methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia. The passenger was identified as Tommy L. Sherrill, 50, of Topeka, and was arrested for possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute and possession of drug paraphernalia.

A handgun was located in a yard near 600 NW Menninger and was believed to have been thrown from the pickup truck during the pursuit. The total amount of methamphetamine taken from the pickup truck was over 8 grams, according to the sheriff's department.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2019/12/1577791221271.png" alt="Brooks photo Shawnee County" />
 <figcaption>Brooks photo Shawnee County</figcaption>
 </figure>SHAWNEE COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating two suspects on multiple charges after a brief high-speed chase.Just before 11:30p.m. Sunday, a Shawnee County Sheriff’s Office deputy attempted to stop a pickup truck near NW 24 Highway and Rochester Road, according to sheriff's deputy Abigail Christian.&nbsp;The pickup truck pulled into a parking lot and failed to yield. The Shawnee County Emergency Communications Center advised that the tag on the vehicle was not valid.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2019/12/1577791319243.png" alt="Sherrill photo Shawnee County" />
 <figcaption>Sherrill photo Shawnee County</figcaption>
 </figure>The vehicle drove back onto Rochester road and fled to the north. A pursuit was initiated and lasted approximately two minutes. The pursuit ended when the pickup truck pulled into a driveway on NW Wilder Road.The driver of the pickup truck was identified as David W. Brooks, 54, of Topeka. He was arrested for the traffic charges and possession of methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia. The passenger was identified as Tommy L. Sherrill, 50, of Topeka, and was arrested for possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute and possession of drug paraphernalia.A handgun was located in a yard near 600 NW Menninger and was believed to have been thrown from the pickup truck during the pursuit. The total amount of methamphetamine taken from the pickup truck was over 8 grams, according to the sheriff's department.

Kansas suspects threw gun from car during high-speed chase

SEDGWICK COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a fatal officer-involved shooting during a high-speed chase and have identified the victim as&nbsp;Debra D. Arbuckle, 51,&nbsp; Andover, according to Lt. Tim Myers with Sedgwick County Sheriff's Department.

Arbuckle had 3 active felony arrest warrants in Sedgwick County at the time of the pursuit.  The warrants were issued for failing to appear in court on criminal charges of Possession of Opiates, Possession of Marijuana, Drug Paraphernalia, Criminal Possession of a Weapon by a Felon, and traffic charges.  Arbuckle has been arrested 38 times.  35 times in Sedgwick County, Kansas, 2 times in Newton, Kansas, and once in Texas, according to Myers.&nbsp;

Just after 3a.m. Monday, police were involved in a pursuit with a Volkswagen. A short time later, Sedgwick County deputies attempted to stop the same vehicle driven by Arbuckle that was traveling on MacArthur just west of Kansas 15 Highway, according to Colonel Brian White with the Sedgwick County Sheriff's Department.

Arbuckle refused to stop and led deputies on a chase that last approximately 19 minutes.&nbsp;

During the pursuit, law enforcement used tire deflation devices on two occasions, according to White. Both deployments were successful but the driver refused to stop.

Law enforcement attempted tactical vehicle intervention (TVI) three times during the chase. The second attempt was successful but the driver managed to regain control and continue driving.

Just after 3:43 a.m., the pursuit ended after the 3rd&nbsp;TVI method was used.

The deputy gave several commands to Arbuckle to turn off the vehicle.&nbsp; She did not comply with the commands.&nbsp; Arbuckle placed the vehicle in reverse and accelerated toward deputies.&nbsp;

Fearing for his life and life of the other deputies, a deputy fired several rounds striking her and she was pronounced dead at the scene at 4:00 a.m.

The body was transported to the Sedgwick County Regional Forensic Science Center where an autopsy is being conducted to determine the exact cause of death.

Events of this nature escalate quickly.&nbsp; From the time the deputy got out of his car to the time the shots were fired was less than a minute.&nbsp;

The KBI, Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office, and the Professional Standards Unit of the Sheriff’s Office were all notified.&nbsp; The KBI is assisting with the case.&nbsp; The investigation is still very active.&nbsp; There are multiple body camera videos to review and multiple patrol vehicle videos to review.&nbsp;

No injuries were reported by the deputies involved.&nbsp; The deputy who fired the shots is 26-years-old and has been a deputy with the sheriff’s office for almost 6 years.&nbsp;

It is unfortunate anytime someone is injured or killed in a use of force event.&nbsp; Whenever an incident such as this occurs we conduct a thorough investigation to determine if there were any violations of law or our policy.

Upon the completion of the criminal investigation, the case will be presented to the District Attorney’s Office for review.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2019/12/1577828011429.png" alt="Arbuckle had previous convictions for theft, criminal possession of a weapon and for drugs, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections" />
 <figcaption>Arbuckle had previous convictions for theft, criminal possession of a weapon and for drugs, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections</figcaption>
 </figure>SEDGWICK COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a fatal officer-involved shooting during a high-speed chase and have identified the victim as&nbsp;Debra D. Arbuckle, 51,&nbsp; Andover, according to Lt. Tim Myers with Sedgwick County Sheriff's Department.Arbuckle had 3 active felony arrest warrants in Sedgwick County at the time of the pursuit. The warrants were issued for failing to appear in court on criminal charges of Possession of Opiates, Possession of Marijuana, Drug Paraphernalia, Criminal Possession of a Weapon by a Felon, and traffic charges. Arbuckle has been arrested 38 times. 35 times in Sedgwick County, Kansas, 2 times in Newton, Kansas, and once in Texas, according to Myers.&nbsp;Just after 3a.m. Monday, police were involved in a pursuit with a Volkswagen. A short time later, Sedgwick County deputies attempted to stop the same vehicle driven by Arbuckle that was traveling on MacArthur just west of Kansas 15 Highway, according to Colonel Brian White with the Sedgwick County Sheriff's Department.Arbuckle refused to stop and led deputies on a chase that last approximately 19 minutes.&nbsp;During the pursuit, law enforcement used tire deflation devices on two occasions, according to White. Both deployments were successful but the driver refused to stop.Law enforcement attempted tactical vehicle intervention (TVI) three times during the chase. The second attempt was successful but the driver managed to regain control and continue driving.Just after 3:43 a.m., the pursuit ended after the 3rd&nbsp;TVI method was used.The deputy gave several commands to Arbuckle to turn off the vehicle.&nbsp; She did not comply with the commands.&nbsp; Arbuckle placed the vehicle in reverse and accelerated toward deputies.&nbsp;Fearing for his life and life of the other deputies, a deputy fired several rounds striking her and she was pronounced dead at the scene at 4:00 a.m.The body was transported to the Sedgwick County Regional Forensic Science Center where an autopsy is being conducted to determine the exact cause of death.Events of this nature escalate quickly.&nbsp; From the time the deputy got out of his car to the time the shots were fired was less than a minute.&nbsp;The KBI, Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office, and the Professional Standards Unit of the Sheriff’s Office were all notified.&nbsp; The KBI is assisting with the case.&nbsp; The investigation is still very active.&nbsp; There are multiple body camera videos to review and multiple patrol vehicle videos to review.&nbsp;No injuries were reported by the deputies involved.&nbsp; The deputy who fired the shots is 26-years-old and has been a deputy with the sheriff’s office for almost 6 years.&nbsp;It is unfortunate anytime someone is injured or killed in a use of force event.&nbsp; Whenever an incident such as this occurs we conduct a thorough investigation to determine if there were any violations of law or our policy.Upon the completion of the criminal investigation, the case will be presented to the District Attorney’s Office for review.

Woman who died in Kan. deputy shooting had been arrested 38 times

FINNEY COUNTY —Law enforcement authorities are investigating an alleged kidnapping and have made an arrest.

Just after 3a.m. Sunday, police conducted a traffic stop in Garden City and located a missing 15-year-old girl in the passenger seat, according to Sgt. Lana Urteaga.

Investigators learned that on December 23, the girl had been taken against her will by 18-year-old Cipriano Garcia. On Monday, police located and arrested Garcia. He was being held in the Finney County Jail on requested charges of aggravated kidnapping and aggravated robbery, according to Urteaga.&nbsp; On Tuesday morning, Garcia was no longer in custody.&nbsp;

Sunday's traffic stop was not related to the the alleged kidnapping.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2019/12/1577801606092.png" alt="Garcia photo Finney County" />
 <figcaption>Garcia photo Finney County</figcaption>
 </figure>FINNEY COUNTY —Law enforcement authorities are investigating an alleged kidnapping and have made an arrest.Just after 3a.m. Sunday, police conducted a traffic stop in Garden City and located a missing 15-year-old girl in the passenger seat, according to Sgt. Lana Urteaga.Investigators learned that on December 23, the girl had been taken against her will by 18-year-old Cipriano Garcia. On Monday, police located and arrested Garcia. He was being held in the Finney County Jail on requested charges of aggravated kidnapping and aggravated robbery, according to Urteaga.&nbsp; On Tuesday morning, Garcia was no longer in custody.&nbsp;Sunday's traffic stop was not related to the the alleged kidnapping.

Missing 15-year-old girl rescued during Kansas traffic stop

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Authorities have arrested a suspect in the deaths of a mother and two children whose bodies were found after a house fire in Kansas City, Kansas.

Police said late Monday in a tweet that charges are pending a review by the Wyandotte County District Attorney's Office. The cause of death and a motive weren't immediately released.

Firefighters responded to the blaze around 4:35 a.m. Monday. KCTV reports that the victims have been identified as 32-year-old Yazmine Rodriguez, 14-year-old Amerikha Rodriguez and 10-year-old Jean Carlos Rodriguez.

Family members say they tried to reach Yazmine all day Sunday, but she never called or texted them back.

“I want justice and if anybody saw anything, anybody go inside the house, speak up,” Ana Rodriguez, the children’s aunt, said. “They were the happiest kids ever.”

Yazmine has two other children, who were with their father for Christmas break. The father of the children who died is in Mexico.

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A fire at a Kansas City, Kansas, house that killed of an adult female and two juveniles early Monday is being investigated as a homicide case, police said.

An adult woman and two juveniles died in the blaze, which was reported about 4:30 a.m. Monday. Authorities initially reported that two adults and a child had died.

No other details were immediately released, including the names of the victims.

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Authorities say that two adults and a youth have been killed in a house fire in Kansas City, Kansas.

The fire started around 4:30 a.m. Monday. No other details were immediately released about the blaze, including the names of the victims.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2019/12/1577714834878.png" alt="Crews on the scene early Monday photo courtesy KCTV" />
 <figcaption>Crews on the scene early Monday photo courtesy KCTV</figcaption>
 </figure>KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Authorities have arrested a suspect in the deaths of a mother and two children whose bodies were found after a house fire in Kansas City, Kansas.Police said late Monday in a tweet that charges are pending a review by the Wyandotte County District Attorney's Office. The cause of death and a motive weren't immediately released.Firefighters responded to the blaze around 4:35 a.m. Monday. KCTV reports that the victims have been identified as 32-year-old Yazmine Rodriguez, 14-year-old Amerikha Rodriguez and 10-year-old Jean Carlos Rodriguez.Family members say they tried to reach Yazmine all day Sunday, but she never called or texted them back.“I want justice and if anybody saw anything, anybody go inside the house, speak up,” Ana Rodriguez, the children’s aunt, said. “They were the happiest kids ever.”Yazmine has two other children, who were with their father for Christmas break. The father of the children who died is in Mexico.-------------KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A fire at a Kansas City, Kansas, house that killed of an adult female and two juveniles early Monday is being investigated as a homicide case, police said.An adult woman and two juveniles died in the blaze, which was reported about 4:30 a.m. Monday. Authorities initially reported that two adults and a child had died.No other details were immediately released, including the names of the victims.-------------------KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Authorities say that two adults and a youth have been killed in a house fire in Kansas City, Kansas.The fire started around 4:30 a.m. Monday. No other details were immediately released about the blaze, including the names of the victims.The fire is under investigation.

Police make arrest in deaths of woman, 2 kids in Kan. house fire

RENO COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a Kansas felon on new charges after a drug bust.

Just after 10a.m. Monday, the Hutchinson Police Department Repeat Offender Unit, Detective Division, and K-9 Unit served a search warrant at 404 E 10th Avenue in Hutchinson, following an&nbsp;investigation into the residence, which is in the immediate vicinity of Faris Elementary, for distributing illegal narcotics, according to a media release.

Police found distribution quantities of cocaine/crack cocaine and marijuana along with drug paraphernalia consistent with drug sales and over $17,000 in suspected drug proceeds

Police arrested 41-year-old Derrick Stewart on requested charges that include Possession of Cocaine with Intent to Distribute within 1000' of a School, Possession of Marijuana with Intent to Distribute within 1000' of a School, Possession of Drug Paraphernalia w/Intent to Distribute within 1000' of a school and Felony Interference with Law Enforcement.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Stewart has previous convictions for battery, criminal discharge of a firearm and for drugs, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2019/12/1577800184216.png" alt="Photo Hutchinson Police" />
 <figcaption>Photo Hutchinson Police</figcaption>
 </figure>RENO COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a Kansas felon on new charges after a drug bust.Just after 10a.m. Monday, the Hutchinson Police Department Repeat Offender Unit, Detective Division, and K-9 Unit served a search warrant at 404 E 10th Avenue in Hutchinson, following an&nbsp;investigation into the residence, which is in the immediate vicinity of Faris Elementary, for distributing illegal narcotics, according to a media release.Police found distribution quantities of cocaine/crack cocaine and marijuana along with drug paraphernalia consistent with drug sales and over $17,000 in suspected drug proceeds<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2019/12/1577800234870.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>Stewart Photo Reno Co.Police arrested 41-year-old Derrick Stewart on requested charges that include Possession of Cocaine with Intent to Distribute within 1000' of a School, Possession of Marijuana with Intent to Distribute within 1000' of a School, Possession of Drug Paraphernalia w/Intent to Distribute within 1000' of a school and Felony Interference with Law Enforcement.&nbsp;&nbsp;Stewart has previous convictions for battery, criminal discharge of a firearm and for drugs, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections.

Kan. police K9 helps seize drugs, cash near elementary school

SHAWNEE COUNTY—Law enforcement authorities are investigating an armed robbery and have a suspect in custody.

Just before 10p.m. Saturday, police responded to a report of an armed robbery that had just occurred at the Goose Express convenience store&nbsp; 2901 SE Fremont Street in Topeka, according to Lt. Ron Ekis.

A suspect later identified as 29-year-old Craig&nbsp; Wilson wearing a black hoodie, red t-shirt, blue jeans and baseball cap entered the store, displayed a gun, and stole an undisclosed amount of money. He left the store westbound foot.

&nbsp;A short time later, TPD officers located Wilson, in the 2800 block of SE Monroe and placed him under arrest. He is being held on a requested charge for aggravated robbery, according to Ekis.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2019/12/1577710266328.png" alt="Craig Wilson photo Shawnee County" />
 <figcaption>Craig Wilson photo Shawnee County</figcaption>
 </figure>SHAWNEE COUNTY—Law enforcement authorities are investigating an armed robbery and have a suspect in custody.Just before 10p.m. Saturday, police responded to a report of an armed robbery that had just occurred at the Goose Express convenience store&nbsp; 2901 SE Fremont Street in Topeka, according to Lt. Ron Ekis.A suspect later identified as 29-year-old Craig&nbsp; Wilson wearing a black hoodie, red t-shirt, blue jeans and baseball cap entered the store, displayed a gun, and stole an undisclosed amount of money. He left the store westbound foot.&nbsp;A short time later, TPD officers located Wilson, in the 2800 block of SE Monroe and placed him under arrest. He is being held on a requested charge for aggravated robbery, according to Ekis.

Police arrest Kansas man shortly after armed robbery

WASHINGTON (AP) —Richard J. Poster served time for possessing child pornography, violated his probation by having contact with children, admitted masturbating in the bushes near a church school and in 2005 was put on a sex offender registry. And yet the former Catholic priest was only just this month added to a list of clergy members credibly accused of child sexual abuse — after The Associated Press asked why he was not included.

Victims advocates had long criticized the Roman Catholic Church for not making public the names of credibly accused priests. Now, despite the dioceses’ release of nearly 5,300 names, most in the last two years, critics say the lists are far from complete.

An AP analysis found more than 900 clergy members accused of child sexual abuse who were missing from lists released by the dioceses and religious orders where they served.

The AP reached that number by matching those public diocesan lists against a database of accused priests tracked by the group BishopAccountability.org and then scouring bankruptcy documents, lawsuits, settlement information, grand jury reports and media accounts.

More than a hundred of the former clergy members not listed by dioceses or religious orders had been charged with sexual crimes, including rape, solicitation and receiving or viewing child pornography.

On top of that, the AP found another nearly 400 priests and clergy members who were accused of abuse while serving in dioceses that have not yet released any names.

“No one should think, ‘Oh, the bishops are releasing their lists, there’s nothing left to do,’” said Terence McKiernan, co-founder of BishopAccountability.org, who has been tracking the abuse crisis and cataloging accused priests for almost two decades, accumulating a database of thousands of priests.

“There are a lot of holes in these lists,” he said. “There’s still a lot to do to get to actual, true transparency.”

Church officials say that absent an admission of guilt, they have to weigh releasing a name against harming the reputation of priests who may have been falsely accused. By naming accused priests, they note, they also open themselves to lawsuits from those who maintain their innocence.

Earlier this month, former priest John Tormey sued the Providence, Rhode Island, diocese, saying his reputation was irreparably harmed by his inclusion on the diocese’s credibly accused list. After the list was made public, he said he was asked to retire by the community college where he had worked for over a decade.

Some dioceses have excluded entire classes of clergy members from their lists — priests in religious orders, deceased priests who had only one allegation against them, priests ordained in foreign countries and, sometimes, deacons or seminarians ousted before they were ordained.

Others, like Poster, were excluded because of technicalities.

Poster’s name was not included when the Davenport, Iowa, diocese issued its first list of two dozen credibly accused priests in 2008. The diocese said his crime of possessing more than 270 videos and images of child pornography on his work laptop was not originally a qualifying offense in the church’s landmark charter on child abuse because there wasn’t a direct victim.

After he was released from prison, the diocese found Poster a job as a maintenance man at its office, but he was fired less than a year later after admitting to masturbating in the bushes on the property, which abuts a Catholic high school. Still, the diocese did not list him.

Poster went on to violate the terms of his probation, admitting he had contact with minors at a bookstore and near an elementary school, federal court records unsealed at the AP’s request show. A judge sent him back to jail for two months and imposed several other monitoring conditions.

Child pornography was added to the church’s child abuse charter in 2011 and, though the diocese promised it would update its list of perpetrators as required under a court-approved bankruptcy plan, it never included Poster.

“It was an oversight,” diocese spokesman Deacon David Montgomery told the AP. He said the public had been kept informed about the case through press releases issued from Poster’s arrest until his removal from the priesthood in 2007.

Poster, now 54, lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, near a school and two parks. He hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing for more than a decade and declined to comment when reached by the AP, saying he preferred to stay out of the spotlight.

Of the 900 unlisted accused clergy members, more than a tenth had been charged with a sex-related crime — a higher percentage than those named publicly by dioceses and orders, the AP found.

Dioceses varied widely in what they considered a credible accusation. Like Poster, some of the priests criminally charged with child pornography weren’t listed because some dioceses said a victim needed to report a complaint. In addition to Poster, the AP review found 15 other priests charged with possessing, distributing or creating child pornography who were not included on any list.

Other dioceses created exceptions for a host of other reasons, ranging from cases being deemed not credible by a board of lay church people to the clergy members in question having since died and thus being unable to defend themselves.

“If your goal is protecting kids and healing victims, your lists will be as broad and detailed as possible. If your goal is protecting your reputation and institution, it will be narrow and vague. And that’s the choice most bishops are making,” said David Clohessy, the former executive director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, who now heads the group’s St. Louis chapter.

The largest exceptions were made for the nearly 400 priests in religious orders who, while they serve in diocesan schools and parishes, don’t report to the bishops.

Richard J. McCormick, a Salesian priest who worked at parishes, schools and religious camps in dioceses in Florida, New York, Massachusetts, Indiana and Louisiana, has been accused of molesting or having inappropriate contact with children from three states. In 2009, his order settled the first three civil claims against him. Yet he does not appear on any list of credibly accused clergy members.

McCormick finally faced criminal charges after one of his victims spotted the priest’s name on a very different list — one posted in 2011 by a Boston lawyer, Mitchell Garabedian, who represents church sexual abuse victims.

Thirty years had gone by, but Joey Covino said he immediately recognized a photo of McCormick as the priest who had molested him over two summers at a Salesian camp, a woodsy retreat for underprivileged boys in Ipswich, Massachusetts. Covino’s boyhood had revolved around church, where he served as an altar boy, played in a Catholic Little League and where his mother — raising four children on her own — gratefully accepted assistance from friendly priests.

When she sent Covino and his brothers back to the free camp for a second year, “I was petrified — petrified — and I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t even ask my brothers to see if it had happened to them,” said Covino, now 49 and a police officer in Revere, Massachusetts. “I’ve always told myself I should have done something. I should have fought back.”

Covino said the entirety of his adult life had been altered by McCormick’s abuse — failed relationships, his decisions to join the military and later the police, nightmares that plagued him. His decision to come forward led to McCormick being convicted of rape in 2014 and sentenced to up to 10 years. The priest since has pleaded guilty to assaulting another boy.

The Salesians, based in New Rochelle, New York, have never posted a list of credibly accused priests.

“Our men who have been credibly accused and have had accusations have been listed in the various dioceses that we serve,” said Father Steve Ryan, vice provincial of the order.

Ryan said he was certain McCormick’s name appeared on several lists, including Boston’s.

But when Boston posted its list in 2011, Archbishop Sean Patrick O’Malley wrote that he was not including priests from religious orders or visiting clerics because the diocese “does not determine the outcome in such cases; that is the responsibility of the priest’s order or diocese.”

O’Malley since has called on religious orders to post their own lists, spokesman Terry Donilon said.

The AP found the Boston archdiocese has the most accused priests left off its list, with almost 80 not included. Nearly three-quarters, like McCormick, were priests from religious orders. Another dozen died before allegations were received — another exclusion cited by the archdiocese.

McCormick also is not on the New York archdiocese’s list or lists posted by the Archdiocese of Gary, Indiana, and the Diocese of St. Petersburg, Florida — both places where he faced accusations. The archdiocese in New Orleans, where McCormick served in 1991, added his name to its list of credibly accused priests only after an inquiry from the AP.

Priests named on any list were excluded from the AP’s undercount analysis, even if they were not named on lists in the other dioceses where they served. Because the AP counted only priests left off all lists, critics say the number of 900 unnamed priests represents just a tiny portion of the true scope of the underreporting problem.

Other priests excluded from the credibly accused lists were left off because of findings from the diocesan investigations process.

Review boards — independent panels in each diocese staffed with lay people to review allegations of abuse — make the initial recommendation on whether an allegation is credible. The standards those boards use to investigate claims and the process itself often is so shrouded from public view that some victims say they weren’t allowed to attend when their allegations were discussed.

Dozens of priests whose accusers received payouts or legal settlements were left off credibly accused lists because review boards deemed the accusations not substantiated or because bishops or even the Vatican later overturned the board’s findings on appeal. The standards for Vatican appeals are even more secretive.

In 2006, the Chicago Archdiocese’s review board investigated a claim from two brothers who alleged a priest named Robert Stepek had abused them. The board found “reasonable cause to suspect that sexual abuse of minors occurred,” but Stepek was restored to good standing in 2013 after a Vatican court said it was “unable to find evidence strong enough.” The court found Stepek engaged in inappropriate behavior for a priest, however, and he remained without an assignment under restrictions until his death in 2016.

The AP found about 45 accused clergy members who did not appear on the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s list of credibly accused priests. The archdiocese said they were excluded for a variety of reasons, including deciding that about a dozen priests found unsuitable for ministry by a review board due to conduct involving minors did not do anything that rose to the level of abuse.

A spokesman said the archdiocese has a thorough and transparent investigation process, but declined to comment on any of the individual cases of priests not named on its list.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro told the AP that he had to fight church leaders to release a groundbreaking 2018 grand jury report that named more than 300 predator priests and cataloged clergy abuse over seven decades in six of the state’s dioceses, not including Philadelphia.

Several bishops played a direct role in covering up the abuse in Pennsylvania, Shapiro said.

“You can’t put much stock in the lists that the church voluntarily provides because they cannot be trusted to police themselves,” he said.

In Buffalo, New York, Bishop Richard Malone resigned under pressure earlier this month after his executive assistant leaked internal church documents to a reporter after becoming concerned the bishop had intentionally omitted dozens of names from its list of credibly accused priests.

Buffalo’s list has more than doubled to 105 clergy members since those documents were released. Still, the AP found nearly three dozen accused priests who remain unnamed by the diocese.

The number of new claims being reported to law enforcement and church officials over the last two years has increased, spurred in part by revelations of abuse from high-ranking church officials such as former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and by the Pennsylvania grand jury report and the more than 20 other state investigations launched in its wake.

The AP found more than 130 priests who were accused in the last two years whose names do not appear on any lists. Another 37 unlisted priests were accused under New York’s Child Victims Act, which recently opened a window for victims to file civil lawsuits regardless of the statute of limitations, a trend being echoed across the country.

Anne Burke, now chief justice of the Illinois Supreme Court, was part of the Catholic Church’s inaugural National Review Board, a commission formed to help implement the church’s 2002 child abuse charter.

“We gave our report and recommendations over 15 years ago. They never followed through. That was the final nail in the coffin as far as we were concerned in terms of the bishops ever being able to pull themselves away … from the bureaucracy and be transparent,” Burke said. “That is why we are here again today, and it’s worse.”

Many advocates say the church has a long way to go toward being transparent and are determined to see that it becomes far more open about problem priests.

Attorney Jeff Anderson, known for suing dioceses for information on accused clergy, has released almost 30 various rosters of clergy he has received allegations against or whose names appear in church documents.

“We feel a fierce public imperative to continue to release our lists because those released by dioceses contain only a fraction of the true report,” Anderson said. “And they lead people to believe they are coming clean when they are not.”

It was a list that Anderson’s law firm released in the Archdiocese of New York that led 34-year-old Joe Caramanno to file a complaint, decades after he said he was abused.

Caramanno had been hospitalized for an anxiety disorder when he was a teenager and part of his return to high school involved mandated meetings with a priest who controlled his medication. It was during those sessions that Caramanno said Monsignor John Paddack fondled him.

Caramanno, now a teacher, said it wasn’t until he saw Paddack’s name on Anderson’s list that he felt he could come forward. “I needed the validation that it wasn’t just me. It made it more real,” he said.

The archdiocese’s official list of credibly accused priests, released a few months after Anderson’s, contains only half the names and does not include Paddack, who has stepped down during the ongoing investigation.

“It makes me wonder if I hadn’t come forward … would he still be an active priest?” said Caramanno, who has filed a lawsuit against the archdiocese under New York’s Child Victims Act.

An archdiocese spokesman said a request for comment had been relayed to Paddack, but the priest did not respond.

Victims and advocates say the church should be transparent about investigations when allegations are received, arguing that trust in the church can be restored only if bishops are completely forthcoming.

Several dioceses have chosen to include priests under investigation on their lists, removing them if the allegations are determined to be unsubstantiated, but many others do not disclose investigations or include those names.

“Every cleric no matter where they came from or were ordained or went to school or who signs their paycheck ... all of that is hair-splitting and irrelevant,” said Clohessy, of the group SNAP. “What matters is one question: Did or does this credibly accused predator have access to my flock ever? Even for a few hours. If the answer is yes, then that bishop needs to put that predator on his list.”

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2019/12/1577659795264.png" alt="Richard Poster photo Maryland Dept. of Public Safety" />
 <figcaption>Richard Poster photo Maryland Dept. of Public Safety</figcaption>
 </figure>By CLAUDIA LAUER and MEGHAN HOYERWASHINGTON (AP) —Richard J. Poster served time for possessing child pornography, violated his probation by having contact with children, admitted masturbating in the bushes near a church school and in 2005 was put on a sex offender registry. And yet the former Catholic priest was only just this month added to a list of clergy members credibly accused of child sexual abuse — after The Associated Press asked why he was not included.Victims advocates had long criticized the Roman Catholic Church for not making public the names of credibly accused priests. Now, despite the dioceses’ release of nearly 5,300 names, most in the last two years, critics say the lists are far from complete.An AP analysis found more than 900 clergy members accused of child sexual abuse who were missing from lists released by the dioceses and religious orders where they served.The AP reached that number by matching those public diocesan lists against a database of accused priests tracked by the group BishopAccountability.org and then scouring bankruptcy documents, lawsuits, settlement information, grand jury reports and media accounts.More than a hundred of the former clergy members not listed by dioceses or religious orders had been charged with sexual crimes, including rape, solicitation and receiving or viewing child pornography.On top of that, the AP found another nearly 400 priests and clergy members who were accused of abuse while serving in dioceses that have not yet released any names.“No one should think, ‘Oh, the bishops are releasing their lists, there’s nothing left to do,’” said Terence McKiernan, co-founder of BishopAccountability.org, who has been tracking the abuse crisis and cataloging accused priests for almost two decades, accumulating a database of thousands of priests.“There are a lot of holes in these lists,” he said. “There’s still a lot to do to get to actual, true transparency.”Church officials say that absent an admission of guilt, they have to weigh releasing a name against harming the reputation of priests who may have been falsely accused. By naming accused priests, they note, they also open themselves to lawsuits from those who maintain their innocence.Earlier this month, former priest John Tormey sued the Providence, Rhode Island, diocese, saying his reputation was irreparably harmed by his inclusion on the diocese’s credibly accused list. After the list was made public, he said he was asked to retire by the community college where he had worked for over a decade.Some dioceses have excluded entire classes of clergy members from their lists — priests in religious orders, deceased priests who had only one allegation against them, priests ordained in foreign countries and, sometimes, deacons or seminarians ousted before they were ordained.Others, like Poster, were excluded because of technicalities.Poster’s name was not included when the Davenport, Iowa, diocese issued its first list of two dozen credibly accused priests in 2008. The diocese said his crime of possessing more than 270 videos and images of child pornography on his work laptop was not originally a qualifying offense in the church’s landmark charter on child abuse because there wasn’t a direct victim.After he was released from prison, the diocese found Poster a job as a maintenance man at its office, but he was fired less than a year later after admitting to masturbating in the bushes on the property, which abuts a Catholic high school. Still, the diocese did not list him.Poster went on to violate the terms of his probation, admitting he had contact with minors at a bookstore and near an elementary school, federal court records unsealed at the AP’s request show. A judge sent him back to jail for two months and imposed several other monitoring conditions.Child pornography was added to the church’s child abuse charter in 2011 and, though the diocese promised it would update its list of perpetrators as required under a court-approved bankruptcy plan, it never included Poster.“It was an oversight,” diocese spokesman Deacon David Montgomery told the AP. He said the public had been kept informed about the case through press releases issued from Poster’s arrest until his removal from the priesthood in 2007.Poster, now 54, lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, near a school and two parks. He hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing for more than a decade and declined to comment when reached by the AP, saying he preferred to stay out of the spotlight.Of the 900 unlisted accused clergy members, more than a tenth had been charged with a sex-related crime — a higher percentage than those named publicly by dioceses and orders, the AP found.Dioceses varied widely in what they considered a credible accusation. Like Poster, some of the priests criminally charged with child pornography weren’t listed because some dioceses said a victim needed to report a complaint. In addition to Poster, the AP review found 15 other priests charged with possessing, distributing or creating child pornography who were not included on any list.Other dioceses created exceptions for a host of other reasons, ranging from cases being deemed not credible by a board of lay church people to the clergy members in question having since died and thus being unable to defend themselves.“If your goal is protecting kids and healing victims, your lists will be as broad and detailed as possible. If your goal is protecting your reputation and institution, it will be narrow and vague. And that’s the choice most bishops are making,” said David Clohessy, the former executive director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, who now heads the group’s St. Louis chapter.The largest exceptions were made for the nearly 400 priests in religious orders who, while they serve in diocesan schools and parishes, don’t report to the bishops.Richard J. McCormick, a Salesian priest who worked at parishes, schools and religious camps in dioceses in Florida, New York, Massachusetts, Indiana and Louisiana, has been accused of molesting or having inappropriate contact with children from three states. In 2009, his order settled the first three civil claims against him. Yet he does not appear on any list of credibly accused clergy members.McCormick finally faced criminal charges after one of his victims spotted the priest’s name on a very different list — one posted in 2011 by a Boston lawyer, Mitchell Garabedian, who represents church sexual abuse victims.Thirty years had gone by, but Joey Covino said he immediately recognized a photo of McCormick as the priest who had molested him over two summers at a Salesian camp, a woodsy retreat for underprivileged boys in Ipswich, Massachusetts. Covino’s boyhood had revolved around church, where he served as an altar boy, played in a Catholic Little League and where his mother — raising four children on her own — gratefully accepted assistance from friendly priests.When she sent Covino and his brothers back to the free camp for a second year, “I was petrified — petrified — and I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t even ask my brothers to see if it had happened to them,” said Covino, now 49 and a police officer in Revere, Massachusetts. “I’ve always told myself I should have done something. I should have fought back.”Covino said the entirety of his adult life had been altered by McCormick’s abuse — failed relationships, his decisions to join the military and later the police, nightmares that plagued him. His decision to come forward led to McCormick being convicted of rape in 2014 and sentenced to up to 10 years. The priest since has pleaded guilty to assaulting another boy.The Salesians, based in New Rochelle, New York, have never posted a list of credibly accused priests.“Our men who have been credibly accused and have had accusations have been listed in the various dioceses that we serve,” said Father Steve Ryan, vice provincial of the order.Ryan said he was certain McCormick’s name appeared on several lists, including Boston’s.But when Boston posted its list in 2011, Archbishop Sean Patrick O’Malley wrote that he was not including priests from religious orders or visiting clerics because the diocese “does not determine the outcome in such cases; that is the responsibility of the priest’s order or diocese.”O’Malley since has called on religious orders to post their own lists, spokesman Terry Donilon said.The AP found the Boston archdiocese has the most accused priests left off its list, with almost 80 not included. Nearly three-quarters, like McCormick, were priests from religious orders. Another dozen died before allegations were received — another exclusion cited by the archdiocese.McCormick also is not on the New York archdiocese’s list or lists posted by the Archdiocese of Gary, Indiana, and the Diocese of St. Petersburg, Florida — both places where he faced accusations. The archdiocese in New Orleans, where McCormick served in 1991, added his name to its list of credibly accused priests only after an inquiry from the AP.Priests named on any list were excluded from the AP’s undercount analysis, even if they were not named on lists in the other dioceses where they served. Because the AP counted only priests left off all lists, critics say the number of 900 unnamed priests represents just a tiny portion of the true scope of the underreporting problem.Other priests excluded from the credibly accused lists were left off because of findings from the diocesan investigations process.Review boards — independent panels in each diocese staffed with lay people to review allegations of abuse — make the initial recommendation on whether an allegation is credible. The standards those boards use to investigate claims and the process itself often is so shrouded from public view that some victims say they weren’t allowed to attend when their allegations were discussed.Dozens of priests whose accusers received payouts or legal settlements were left off credibly accused lists because review boards deemed the accusations not substantiated or because bishops or even the Vatican later overturned the board’s findings on appeal. The standards for Vatican appeals are even more secretive.In 2006, the Chicago Archdiocese’s review board investigated a claim from two brothers who alleged a priest named Robert Stepek had abused them. The board found “reasonable cause to suspect that sexual abuse of minors occurred,” but Stepek was restored to good standing in 2013 after a Vatican court said it was “unable to find evidence strong enough.” The court found Stepek engaged in inappropriate behavior for a priest, however, and he remained without an assignment under restrictions until his death in 2016.The AP found about 45 accused clergy members who did not appear on the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s list of credibly accused priests. The archdiocese said they were excluded for a variety of reasons, including deciding that about a dozen priests found unsuitable for ministry by a review board due to conduct involving minors did not do anything that rose to the level of abuse.A spokesman said the archdiocese has a thorough and transparent investigation process, but declined to comment on any of the individual cases of priests not named on its list.Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro told the AP that he had to fight church leaders to release a groundbreaking 2018 grand jury report that named more than 300 predator priests and cataloged clergy abuse over seven decades in six of the state’s dioceses, not including Philadelphia.Several bishops played a direct role in covering up the abuse in Pennsylvania, Shapiro said.“You can’t put much stock in the lists that the church voluntarily provides because they cannot be trusted to police themselves,” he said.In Buffalo, New York, Bishop Richard Malone resigned under pressure earlier this month after his executive assistant leaked internal church documents to a reporter after becoming concerned the bishop had intentionally omitted dozens of names from its list of credibly accused priests.Buffalo’s list has more than doubled to 105 clergy members since those documents were released. Still, the AP found nearly three dozen accused priests who remain unnamed by the diocese.The number of new claims being reported to law enforcement and church officials over the last two years has increased, spurred in part by revelations of abuse from high-ranking church officials such as former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and by the Pennsylvania grand jury report and the more than 20 other state investigations launched in its wake.The AP found more than 130 priests who were accused in the last two years whose names do not appear on any lists. Another 37 unlisted priests were accused under New York’s Child Victims Act, which recently opened a window for victims to file civil lawsuits regardless of the statute of limitations, a trend being echoed across the country.Anne Burke, now chief justice of the Illinois Supreme Court, was part of the Catholic Church’s inaugural National Review Board, a commission formed to help implement the church’s 2002 child abuse charter.“We gave our report and recommendations over 15 years ago. They never followed through. That was the final nail in the coffin as far as we were concerned in terms of the bishops ever being able to pull themselves away … from the bureaucracy and be transparent,” Burke said. “That is why we are here again today, and it’s worse.”Many advocates say the church has a long way to go toward being transparent and are determined to see that it becomes far more open about problem priests.Attorney Jeff Anderson, known for suing dioceses for information on accused clergy, has released almost 30 various rosters of clergy he has received allegations against or whose names appear in church documents.“We feel a fierce public imperative to continue to release our lists because those released by dioceses contain only a fraction of the true report,” Anderson said. “And they lead people to believe they are coming clean when they are not.”It was a list that Anderson’s law firm released in the Archdiocese of New York that led 34-year-old Joe Caramanno to file a complaint, decades after he said he was abused.Caramanno had been hospitalized for an anxiety disorder when he was a teenager and part of his return to high school involved mandated meetings with a priest who controlled his medication. It was during those sessions that Caramanno said Monsignor John Paddack fondled him.Caramanno, now a teacher, said it wasn’t until he saw Paddack’s name on Anderson’s list that he felt he could come forward. “I needed the validation that it wasn’t just me. It made it more real,” he said.The archdiocese’s official list of credibly accused priests, released a few months after Anderson’s, contains only half the names and does not include Paddack, who has stepped down during the ongoing investigation.“It makes me wonder if I hadn’t come forward … would he still be an active priest?” said Caramanno, who has filed a lawsuit against the archdiocese under New York’s Child Victims Act.An archdiocese spokesman said a request for comment had been relayed to Paddack, but the priest did not respond.Victims and advocates say the church should be transparent about investigations when allegations are received, arguing that trust in the church can be restored only if bishops are completely forthcoming.Several dioceses have chosen to include priests under investigation on their lists, removing them if the allegations are determined to be unsubstantiated, but many others do not disclose investigations or include those names.“Every cleric no matter where they came from or were ordained or went to school or who signs their paycheck ... all of that is hair-splitting and irrelevant,” said Clohessy, of the group SNAP. “What matters is one question: Did or does this credibly accused predator have access to my flock ever? Even for a few hours. If the answer is yes, then that bishop needs to put that predator on his list.”___

Hundreds of accused clergy left off Catholic Church's sex abuse lists

SHAWNEE COUNTY — The FBI and local law enforcement authorities are investigating a weekend bank robbery and continue to search for a suspect.

Just after 11:30 a.m. Saturday, officers responded to Intrust Bank, 1035 SW Topeka Blvd. in Topeka on the report of an aggravated robbery, according to Lt. John Trimble.

 Officers discovered that a suspect described as a black male, standing approximately 5-foot-8, skinny build, and wearing red clothes entered the bank. The suspect then displayed a handgun and robbed the bank of an undisclosed amount of money. The suspect stole a vehicle belonging to a bank employee and left the area in an unknown location. 

Just after 2:30p.m. Saturday, police located the vehicle. It was unoccupied.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Police have not reported an arrest or additional details. Anyone who can identify the suspect is asked to call police.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2019/12/1577638651427.png" alt="Security camera images courtesy FBI" />
 <figcaption>Security camera images courtesy FBI</figcaption>
 </figure>SHAWNEE COUNTY — The FBI and local law enforcement authorities are investigating a weekend bank robbery and continue to search for a suspect.Just after 11:30 a.m. Saturday, officers responded to Intrust Bank, 1035 SW Topeka Blvd. in Topeka on the report of an aggravated robbery, according to Lt. John Trimble. Officers discovered that a suspect described as a black male, standing approximately 5-foot-8, skinny build, and wearing red clothes entered the bank. The suspect then displayed a handgun and robbed the bank of an undisclosed amount of money. The suspect stole a vehicle belonging to a bank employee and left the area in an unknown location. Just after 2:30p.m. Saturday, police located the vehicle. It was unoccupied.&nbsp;&nbsp;Police have not reported an arrest or additional details. Anyone who can identify the suspect is asked to call police.

Kansas bank robbery suspect took cash, employee's car

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A frightened Kansas City mother rushed to the nearest police station one afternoon in September after her 14-year-old hadn’t come home from school.

At the front desk, Judith Boris shared every detail she could think of that could help police find him.

What he was wearing when he went to his classes that day. Descriptions of his hair and eye color. His height. His weight. The scars on his face.

Then, police asked for the teen’s name.

“Legal name? Or what name he goes by?” Boris asked.

It was an important question in this case. The teen is transgender, answers to a name different from his legal name and uses male pronouns, Boris explained to police.

But later in a missing persons flier distributed to local media, police primarily identified the missing teen by his legal name and used the wrong gender.

LGBTQ advocates say that can endanger people who are transgender and can lead to law enforcement losing the trust of a community that already fears being targeted or discriminated against.

Melissa Brown, a local advocate with the Kansas City Anti-Violence Project, told&nbsp;<a href="https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article235531877.html">The Kansas City Star</a>&nbsp;that seeing the flier for the missing teen broke her heart. The bulletin left out key details and included “a bunch of misgendering,” putting the teen at risk, she said. The teen was eventually located, but the case is now being investigated as a possible sexual assault.

The Star is not naming the teen as the newspaper generally does not name minors who may be victims of assault.

People who identify as transgender can be more at risk as victims of violence. At least 24 transgender or gender-nonconforming people have been killed in the U.S. this year, with three of those deaths occurring in the Kansas City area, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

A report released in November by the FBI counted 7,120 hate crime incidents in 2018. Of that total, 168 incidents were motivated by gender identity bias, a 41% increase from 2017.

The Kansas City Police Department has been praised by one national figure for being forthcoming in identifying victims of homicide who are trans and for having an LGBTQ liaison officer. But it falls short, local advocates suggest, when the liaison isn’t looped in on cases like that of the missing teen.

In response to questions about the missing teenager’s case, Kansas City police spokesman Capt. Tim Hernandez said he could not say why the flier was written the way it was or why it lacked essential information such as the child’s age and physical description. The flier was written by officers in the Missing Persons Unit.

Any misunderstanding or miscommunication “was unintentional,” Hernandez said.

Unintentional or not, some advocates say this is one example that shows those in law enforcement need ongoing training to better serve people in the LGBTQ community.

When it comes to gender identity, police and advocates agree that sometimes complications can arise. Both say there are ways to navigate them.

When police don’t correctly identify transgender people who are victims of violence, it can “diminish trust within the community, confuse investigations and reinforce the very prejudice at the heart of this violence,” said Sarah McBride, national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign.

Misgendering — whether done intentionally or through carelessness — undermines the ability of law enforcement to investigate when a person who is transgender is a victim of violence or has disappeared, McBride said. Police reports that describe a victim as a man in women’s clothing, or use the person’s former name, can also problematic and disrespectful, according to advocates.

“Outing” a trans person who has gone missing also could put them or their family members in danger, said Steph Perkins, executive director of PROMO, a Missouri-based LGBTQ advocacy organization.

When a person’s gender identity is unclear or unknown, advocates often suggest that police should avoid choosing a gender or use neutral pronouns until more information can be obtained.

Brown was out of town when Boris’ child disappeared in September, but remembers seeing the brief missing-persons bulletin that identified the teen using incorrect pronouns.

“This actually endangered (the teen) even more putting this out, so that’s where my concern is,” Brown said. ”Is KCPD listening to the community? Are they hearing when we’re saying this is not how that person identified. Can you please shift that language?”

Brown works with the Anti-Violence Project to provide services to those experiencing trauma, harassment and violence, including hate crimes. Brown said concerns of hate violence came up in the case of Tamara Dominquez, 36, a transgender woman who was run over with a vehicle and killed near Independence and Spruce avenues in the summer of 2015.

When the first police and media reports came out about Dominquez, “there was a lot of misgendering; people deadnamed her,” Brown said, meaning some identified her by her previous name.

The driver was arrested and charged in 2016. Luis Sanchez pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and armed criminal action, and was sentenced to 18 years in prison in 2018.

“We founded a group specifically for trans people of color after that so that they could have a space to heal and empower each other because we believe still that that was hate violence, a hate crime,” Brown said. “Of course, the police have to do special steps to identify this hate violence.”

Sometimes police get it wrong. In rare occurrences, others may confuse the message on social media.

It happened in the case of Jamagio Jamar Berryman, a 30-year-old father who was gunned down in the street last September in Kansas City, Kansas. A man thought to be in a relationship with Berryman was arrested across the state line and charged with first-degree murder.

Soon after the killing, someone close to Berryman made a post on social media indicating Berryman was transgender.

The post was quickly picked up by national outlets and organizations.

It caught the attention of Starzette Palmer, executive director for Our Spot KC, a hub of resources for people in the community. The information hadn’t been verified, Palmer said, so she and other advocates reached out to Berryman’s family.

Palmer and three advocates met with the family, who asked media outlets to stop misidentifying Berryman. The family described Berryman as a man and a father to a 5-year-old girl.

“Jamar was not a person who identified as a woman,” said one of the advocates, Nyla Foster of the Trans Women of Color Collective.

“The image that’s being distributed of Jamar dressed like a woman is only a piece of how he expressed himself, but it is not how he identified, so can we please stop using that language out of respect for the family and who Jamar was?”

The experience sparked conversations among advocates.

“How do we find a silver lining in this, in how we educate on what this means?’” Palmer said.

When people who are transgender or gender-nonconforming disappear or die from homicide, police and advocates are often at the mercy of family and the community in what they can learn about them.

The timing of coming out is also something to consider.

“People don’t come out to every single person in their whole life at once, and so often people who identify as part of the transgender community — whether that’s because they identify as transgender or non binary or a host of other identities under the transgender umbrella — their friends may know them as transgender and their family may not or vice versa,” Perkins said.

McBride, of the Human Rights Campaign, points to the Kansas City Police Department as an example of an agency that has taken steps over the last few years to serve the transgender community “with respect and dignity.”

Police showed the ability to meet that need in 2019 when two killings occurred in the city involving victims who were transgender.

In June, Brooklyn Lindsey, 32, was found dead with obvious signs of trauma to the face and gunshot wounds in the 600 block of Spruce Avenue, close to the same intersection where Dominquez was killed four years earlier.

Then, in October, Brianna “BB” Hill, 30, was fatally shot in the 4300 block of Hardesty Avenue.

After each death, the police department’s news release shared the victims’ birth name along with how they chose to be identified. Police said they would refer to the victims by their preferred names and asked media to do so as well.

The Kansas City Police Department partnered with the Kansas City Anti-Violence Project in 2015 to provide LGBTQ awareness training to its recruits, officers and staff. The training included instruction on LGBTQ terminology and identities and how to effectively advocate and be inclusive of LGBTQ communities.

Training is provided to recruits at the police academy primarily through the department’s diversity coordinator and LGBTQ liaison and occasionally delivered to officers. But advocates say they would like to see the training delivered to all officers and on a more regular basis. They also want to see the police department allocate resources toward employing full-time liaisons and ensuring those officers are affirmed and supported in their roles.

The police department said it believes there is “more to relationship building than training.” One way the police department is able to build a relationship with the community, it said, is through the liaison officer.

Officer Kim Shaw-Ellis has been the department’s LGBTQ liaison since the start of 2017 and is a part of the community herself. The purpose of the liaison, she says, is to help community members have their voices heard when concerns arise, offer ideas for policies or training and assist the investigations unit when crimes occur involving members of the LGBTQ community.

There is “a strong desire, a strong hunger” for that education, Shaw-Ellis said. So much so that other agencies have been inspired to establish their own LGBTQ liaisons. The Johnson County Sheriff’s Office in Kansas is one of them.

Shaw-Ellis has been in law enforcement for 32 years, most of that time spent in Kansas City. The majority of officers, she says, “really do care and want to do the right thing,” but recognize that some in the community may be afraid or hesitant to call police when they need help.

“That has been my experience,” Shaw-Ellis said. “But also knowing that there are real fears in the community of us (police) … To think somebody would be fearful to reach out when they need help, I am going to do everything I can in this last chapter of law enforcement to try to make that different because everyone deserves to feel safe and protected.”

Shaw-Ellis was not notified about the missing transgender teenager, and wasn’t involved in crafting the public bulletin about his case.

In the spring, the police department cut back Shaw-Ellis’ liaison duties and temporarily assigned her to teach basic training at the regional police academy, where she has spent about 80 percent of her time in the past several months.

In written responses to questions from The Star, the police department said it asked Shaw-Ellis to step in as an adjunct instructor earlier this year because of the large number of police academy recruits. The department said it plans to have Shaw-Ellis return to liaison duties after one of the classes graduates in January.

Local advocacy groups say they are grateful for the police department’s liaison, but “in order for a system to be inclusive, then there need to be policies or procedures that support and uplift all of us,” Brown said. “And with KCPD, that is going to take more than one person, more than 20 percent of one person’s time.

“Very little movement can be made,” Brown said, unless police give the liaison more power to make changes and keep that officer informed about incidents involving the community, such as the missing teen.

Looking back to the September afternoon when her child disappeared, Boris says, the police department could have done better.

It happened after school one Friday. Boris received a text from the teen before school let out that day, asking if he could walk home, she said.

The school and the family’s home are about two miles apart, but he had walked before, Boris said. She planned to pick up her other two teens from their school that afternoon, so she thought she would cross his path.

On the road, Boris started looking for her child. She called his cellphone. It went to voicemail.

She waited, thinking he would show up at home or at one of his favorite hangout spots, the library. He didn’t show up.

After driving around the neighborhood, she went to the police department and reported the teen missing.

This was the first time something like this had happened, Boris explained to police.

“I gave them everything that I knew,” Boris said. “Shoes, pants, shirt, backpack, glasses, hair, scars on his face … I’m thinking from top to bottom, every descriptive thing I can give you of my child.”

Police jotted down the information, Boris said. She provided a picture.

In return, police gave Boris a phone number for the missing persons unit and a case number.

The bulletin police later distributed lacked essential information such as the teen’s age, hair color, eye color, weight and height.

It used female pronouns and led with the teen’s previous name.

Friends told Boris to avoid the news stories online, but she looked at some out of curiosity, she said.

“We didn’t know where my child was, we didn’t know who had my child, and if my child has been going by (another name) for the last year and a half and identifies as male, and you’re suddenly saying (the legal name) and ‘she’ … and people were confused,” Boris said. “Are we looking for a boy? Or are we looking for a girl?”

Hernandez, the police spokesman, said when police enter information into their system for a missing person, “we can’t put the name in as someone other than their legal name.”

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A frightened Kansas City mother rushed to the nearest police station one afternoon in September after her 14-year-old hadn’t come home from school.At the front desk, Judith Boris shared every detail she could think of that could help police find him.What he was wearing when he went to his classes that day. Descriptions of his hair and eye color. His height. His weight. The scars on his face.Then, police asked for the teen’s name.“Legal name? Or what name he goes by?” Boris asked.It was an important question in this case. The teen is transgender, answers to a name different from his legal name and uses male pronouns, Boris explained to police.But later in a missing persons flier distributed to local media, police primarily identified the missing teen by his legal name and used the wrong gender.LGBTQ advocates say that can endanger people who are transgender and can lead to law enforcement losing the trust of a community that already fears being targeted or discriminated against.Melissa Brown, a local advocate with the Kansas City Anti-Violence Project, told&nbsp;<a href="https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article235531877.html">The Kansas City Star</a>&nbsp;that seeing the flier for the missing teen broke her heart. The bulletin left out key details and included “a bunch of misgendering,” putting the teen at risk, she said. The teen was eventually located, but the case is now being investigated as a possible sexual assault.The Star is not naming the teen as the newspaper generally does not name minors who may be victims of assault.People who identify as transgender can be more at risk as victims of violence. At least 24 transgender or gender-nonconforming people have been killed in the U.S. this year, with three of those deaths occurring in the Kansas City area, according to the Human Rights Campaign.A report released in November by the FBI counted 7,120 hate crime incidents in 2018. Of that total, 168 incidents were motivated by gender identity bias, a 41% increase from 2017.The Kansas City Police Department has been praised by one national figure for being forthcoming in identifying victims of homicide who are trans and for having an LGBTQ liaison officer. But it falls short, local advocates suggest, when the liaison isn’t looped in on cases like that of the missing teen.In response to questions about the missing teenager’s case, Kansas City police spokesman Capt. Tim Hernandez said he could not say why the flier was written the way it was or why it lacked essential information such as the child’s age and physical description. The flier was written by officers in the Missing Persons Unit.Any misunderstanding or miscommunication “was unintentional,” Hernandez said.Unintentional or not, some advocates say this is one example that shows those in law enforcement need ongoing training to better serve people in the LGBTQ community.When it comes to gender identity, police and advocates agree that sometimes complications can arise. Both say there are ways to navigate them.When police don’t correctly identify transgender people who are victims of violence, it can “diminish trust within the community, confuse investigations and reinforce the very prejudice at the heart of this violence,” said Sarah McBride, national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign.Misgendering — whether done intentionally or through carelessness — undermines the ability of law enforcement to investigate when a person who is transgender is a victim of violence or has disappeared, McBride said. Police reports that describe a victim as a man in women’s clothing, or use the person’s former name, can also problematic and disrespectful, according to advocates.“Outing” a trans person who has gone missing also could put them or their family members in danger, said Steph Perkins, executive director of PROMO, a Missouri-based LGBTQ advocacy organization.When a person’s gender identity is unclear or unknown, advocates often suggest that police should avoid choosing a gender or use neutral pronouns until more information can be obtained.Brown was out of town when Boris’ child disappeared in September, but remembers seeing the brief missing-persons bulletin that identified the teen using incorrect pronouns.“This actually endangered (the teen) even more putting this out, so that’s where my concern is,” Brown said. ”Is KCPD listening to the community? Are they hearing when we’re saying this is not how that person identified. Can you please shift that language?”Brown works with the Anti-Violence Project to provide services to those experiencing trauma, harassment and violence, including hate crimes. Brown said concerns of hate violence came up in the case of Tamara Dominquez, 36, a transgender woman who was run over with a vehicle and killed near Independence and Spruce avenues in the summer of 2015.When the first police and media reports came out about Dominquez, “there was a lot of misgendering; people deadnamed her,” Brown said, meaning some identified her by her previous name.The driver was arrested and charged in 2016. Luis Sanchez pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and armed criminal action, and was sentenced to 18 years in prison in 2018.“We founded a group specifically for trans people of color after that so that they could have a space to heal and empower each other because we believe still that that was hate violence, a hate crime,” Brown said. “Of course, the police have to do special steps to identify this hate violence.”Sometimes police get it wrong. In rare occurrences, others may confuse the message on social media.It happened in the case of Jamagio Jamar Berryman, a 30-year-old father who was gunned down in the street last September in Kansas City, Kansas. A man thought to be in a relationship with Berryman was arrested across the state line and charged with first-degree murder.Soon after the killing, someone close to Berryman made a post on social media indicating Berryman was transgender.The post was quickly picked up by national outlets and organizations.It caught the attention of Starzette Palmer, executive director for Our Spot KC, a hub of resources for people in the community. The information hadn’t been verified, Palmer said, so she and other advocates reached out to Berryman’s family.Palmer and three advocates met with the family, who asked media outlets to stop misidentifying Berryman. The family described Berryman as a man and a father to a 5-year-old girl.“Jamar was not a person who identified as a woman,” said one of the advocates, Nyla Foster of the Trans Women of Color Collective.“The image that’s being distributed of Jamar dressed like a woman is only a piece of how he expressed himself, but it is not how he identified, so can we please stop using that language out of respect for the family and who Jamar was?”The experience sparked conversations among advocates.“How do we find a silver lining in this, in how we educate on what this means?’” Palmer said.When people who are transgender or gender-nonconforming disappear or die from homicide, police and advocates are often at the mercy of family and the community in what they can learn about them.The timing of coming out is also something to consider.“People don’t come out to every single person in their whole life at once, and so often people who identify as part of the transgender community — whether that’s because they identify as transgender or non binary or a host of other identities under the transgender umbrella — their friends may know them as transgender and their family may not or vice versa,” Perkins said.McBride, of the Human Rights Campaign, points to the Kansas City Police Department as an example of an agency that has taken steps over the last few years to serve the transgender community “with respect and dignity.”Police showed the ability to meet that need in 2019 when two killings occurred in the city involving victims who were transgender.In June, Brooklyn Lindsey, 32, was found dead with obvious signs of trauma to the face and gunshot wounds in the 600 block of Spruce Avenue, close to the same intersection where Dominquez was killed four years earlier.Then, in October, Brianna “BB” Hill, 30, was fatally shot in the 4300 block of Hardesty Avenue.After each death, the police department’s news release shared the victims’ birth name along with how they chose to be identified. Police said they would refer to the victims by their preferred names and asked media to do so as well.The Kansas City Police Department partnered with the Kansas City Anti-Violence Project in 2015 to provide LGBTQ awareness training to its recruits, officers and staff. The training included instruction on LGBTQ terminology and identities and how to effectively advocate and be inclusive of LGBTQ communities.Training is provided to recruits at the police academy primarily through the department’s diversity coordinator and LGBTQ liaison and occasionally delivered to officers. But advocates say they would like to see the training delivered to all officers and on a more regular basis. They also want to see the police department allocate resources toward employing full-time liaisons and ensuring those officers are affirmed and supported in their roles.The police department said it believes there is “more to relationship building than training.” One way the police department is able to build a relationship with the community, it said, is through the liaison officer.Officer Kim Shaw-Ellis has been the department’s LGBTQ liaison since the start of 2017 and is a part of the community herself. The purpose of the liaison, she says, is to help community members have their voices heard when concerns arise, offer ideas for policies or training and assist the investigations unit when crimes occur involving members of the LGBTQ community.There is “a strong desire, a strong hunger” for that education, Shaw-Ellis said. So much so that other agencies have been inspired to establish their own LGBTQ liaisons. The Johnson County Sheriff’s Office in Kansas is one of them.Shaw-Ellis has been in law enforcement for 32 years, most of that time spent in Kansas City. The majority of officers, she says, “really do care and want to do the right thing,” but recognize that some in the community may be afraid or hesitant to call police when they need help.“That has been my experience,” Shaw-Ellis said. “But also knowing that there are real fears in the community of us (police) … To think somebody would be fearful to reach out when they need help, I am going to do everything I can in this last chapter of law enforcement to try to make that different because everyone deserves to feel safe and protected.”Shaw-Ellis was not notified about the missing transgender teenager, and wasn’t involved in crafting the public bulletin about his case.In the spring, the police department cut back Shaw-Ellis’ liaison duties and temporarily assigned her to teach basic training at the regional police academy, where she has spent about 80 percent of her time in the past several months.In written responses to questions from The Star, the police department said it asked Shaw-Ellis to step in as an adjunct instructor earlier this year because of the large number of police academy recruits. The department said it plans to have Shaw-Ellis return to liaison duties after one of the classes graduates in January.Local advocacy groups say they are grateful for the police department’s liaison, but “in order for a system to be inclusive, then there need to be policies or procedures that support and uplift all of us,” Brown said. “And with KCPD, that is going to take more than one person, more than 20 percent of one person’s time.“Very little movement can be made,” Brown said, unless police give the liaison more power to make changes and keep that officer informed about incidents involving the community, such as the missing teen.Looking back to the September afternoon when her child disappeared, Boris says, the police department could have done better.It happened after school one Friday. Boris received a text from the teen before school let out that day, asking if he could walk home, she said.The school and the family’s home are about two miles apart, but he had walked before, Boris said. She planned to pick up her other two teens from their school that afternoon, so she thought she would cross his path.On the road, Boris started looking for her child. She called his cellphone. It went to voicemail.She waited, thinking he would show up at home or at one of his favorite hangout spots, the library. He didn’t show up.After driving around the neighborhood, she went to the police department and reported the teen missing.This was the first time something like this had happened, Boris explained to police.“I gave them everything that I knew,” Boris said. “Shoes, pants, shirt, backpack, glasses, hair, scars on his face … I’m thinking from top to bottom, every descriptive thing I can give you of my child.”Police jotted down the information, Boris said. She provided a picture.In return, police gave Boris a phone number for the missing persons unit and a case number.The bulletin police later distributed lacked essential information such as the teen’s age, hair color, eye color, weight and height.It used female pronouns and led with the teen’s previous name.Friends told Boris to avoid the news stories online, but she looked at some out of curiosity, she said.“We didn’t know where my child was, we didn’t know who had my child, and if my child has been going by (another name) for the last year and a half and identifies as male, and you’re suddenly saying (the legal name) and ‘she’ … and people were confused,” Boris said. “Are we looking for a boy? Or are we looking for a girl?”Hernandez, the police spokesman, said when police enter information into their system for a missing person, “we can’t put the name in as someone other than their legal name.”“If someone goes through the court and legally changes their name, yes, then we can enter it in,” Hernandez said. “We try to do everything we can to be respectful as far as putting out the identification and information on our press releases.”In the missing teen’s case, police included the teen’s legal name and noted another name he goes by.Generally speaking, Hernandez said, the police department isn’t always able to get all of the details initially in each case and tries to provide updates as information comes in. In this case, Hernandez said he doesn’t know what information police had been given at the time, “but I know they wanted to get this out as quick as they could.”To his knowledge, he added, police were not notified of a request to correct the information.Boris said she managed four hours of sleep that night.Several people offered to help look, Boris said, “but I was worried because anything could have happened. Not only the fact that this is a kid, but is it hate because my kid identifies as transgender?”More than 24 hours after the teen disappeared, Boris said, she finally received a call from her child. Police confirmed the teen had been located safe.But Boris said within half an hour of getting the call, she took him to the hospital to have a rape kit collected.Boris learned the teen had been talking with a person over a chat app and made plans to meet in a public place. At some point during the encounter, Boris believes, someone took her teen to an apartment where he was sexually assaulted.The mother said some of what happened to her child that night is unclear. An investigation by the Kansas City Police Department is underway.“I would like answers. I would like this person to be caught,” Boris said. ”I would like it for adult men to leave underage people alone, whether they’re straight, gay, trans, doesn’t matter. It’s still a minor. That is still a child.”Nearly three months after the incident, Boris says she’s still waiting on updates from police.