Task Force: Officer Altered Intake Form

A community task force reviewing the death of a Black teenager at a juvenile detention center found that an officer changed his answers on a form that otherwise would have led police to take the teen to a hospital instead of booking him into the detention center.

The Wichita Eagle reported that an official who oversees admissions to the Sedgwick County Juvenile Intake and Assessment Center told the task force that the officer initially reported that there were signs that 17-year-old Cedric Lofton needed medical attention before the officer changed his answers.

Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett told the newspaper that he didn’t have enough evidence when he reviewed the case to charge the officer with falsifying information, but that he would be willing to examine any new information.

Emails obtained by the newspaper show that Bennett raised concerns that the Kansas Bureau of Investigation agent investigating the death had a pro-police bias, and the agent was later removed from the case.