Jay-Z’s Team Roc sues Kansas City, Kansas, for records related to alleged police misconduct

Jay Z’s Team Roc, the social justice division of his Roc Nation company, has filed a lawsuit against Kansas City, Kansas, claiming the city has violated public records laws.

The lawsuit, obtained by NBC News, claims the city failed to “timely produce” law enforcement records related to decades long allegations of police abuse and misconduct.

Team Roc lawsuit against Kansas City

Filed in partnership with the Midwest Innocence Project, the suit says that the Kansas City Police Department has not released substantial documents related to complaints pertaining to current and former detectives and officers after Team Roc submitted a records request in November 2023.

The complaint against the Kansas City Police Department and the Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas, alleges they have “stonewalled” the plaintiffs for almost a year. As part of its request under the Kansas Open Records Act, the plaintiffs said they were initially charged $2,200 in fees, which they agreed to pay.

But to date, according to the plaintiffs, the 225 documents provided are mostly personnel locator records showing officer shifts and assignments and a smaller handful consisting of training materials and department policies. There has not been one document related to “any complaint or investigation into even a single instance of misconduct by any member of the KCKPD,” as requested, the suit says.

Reasoning

According to the report, Kansas’ public records law does maintain that certain documents are exempt from public review, including personnel information of public employees and criminal investigation records.

But the plaintiffs claim that the unified government denied its request in “broad, undifferentiated strokes,” and “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.”