INDEPENDENCE, Mo. – KSHB 41 Team I continues to follow the ongoing investigation into a Independence Policeman use of overtime.
Earlier reports from the I-Team revealed that 2,800 overtime hours and more than $160,000 in overtime went into renovations to the city’s detention center.
Documents obtained through a public records request show the cost of building materials for this renovation, which is a central part of the investigation.
the The recent voyage of the KSHB 41 I-Team at the Independence Detention Center pulled back the curtain on the facility’s renovation efforts.
Improvements included new paint and other materials. Credit card statements revealed the cost of these materials.
We obtained credit card statements in the name of the agent at the center of the investigation. Statements for Police Card 9 show a three-year purchase history from 2018 to 2021.
The statement can be viewed below:
The city does not say if anyone else used this card, but provided statements when we asked about this specific agent’s credit card use.
In 2021 alone, over $42,000 in purchases were made.
Most of these three- and often four-digit purchases were made at hardware stores, electricity suppliers and steel suppliers.
The July 2021 statement alone registers north of $17,000, with eight four-digit buys for steel, carpeting, drywall and building materials.
The purchase history of Police Card 9 in 2018 totals $5,093.33. Most of these purchases were also made at hardware stores.
There was also a hotel stay over $700 out of state.
The I-Team requested travel records for this trip, but we don’t know which specific officer made this trip.
Taken together over three years of credit card business, over $49,500 in purchases were made on Police Card 9.
The I-Team recently learned than in a town memothere was no mention of the police department’s involvement in the remodeling.
Independence City Manager Zach Walker told KSHB 41 News that renovating the detention center could have come at the cost of materials.
We are still working to find out what the cost of using maintenance staff during normal business hours would have been and whether the city had price agreements with construction suppliers.
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