Kansas City Cops Raped and Terrorized Black Residents With Impunity: Lawsuit

Five Black women who say they were violently victimized by a former Kansas City, Kansas, police detective have filed a federal lawsuit against him, ex-police chiefs and detectives, and the local government, alleging law enforcement was given permission to “terrorize, abuse, and violate” Black citizens for decades. 

The women said were subjected to a range of abuses including being raped, stalked, and sexually harassed by former cops. 

“With government authority, a plague of State agents used their badges as licenses to stalk, assault, beat, rape, harass, frame, and threaten Black citizens in protected police hunting grounds” the 138-page lawsuit, filed on behalf of Michelle Houcks, Saundra Newsom, Niko Quinn, Ophelia Williams, and Richelle Miller alleged. 

Many of the horrifying allegations outlined in the lawsuit center on former Kansas City detective Roger Golubski, 70, who is separately facing criminal charges for conspiring to run an underage sex trafficking ring, and the sexual assault of Williams and a teenage girl two decades ago. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges and is currently on house arrest. He retired from the force in 2010. 

The lawsuit also names former police detectives Michael Kill, Clayton Bye, and Dennis Ware and former police chiefs Thomas Dailey, James Swafford, Ronald Miller, and Terry Zeigler.

Golubski’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment. 

The Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City said it is unable to comment on any pending litigation. The Kansas City police department also said it cannot comment on pending litigation. 

According to the lawsuit, the defendants ran a “protection racket,” beginning in the 1980s through which they protected criminal organizations who kidnapped, beat, and killed citizens. 

Starting in the 1980s, they “haunted Quindaro Boulevard and the housing projects in the north end of KCK, hunting Black women and taking what they wanted,” the lawsuit alleged. 

The lawsuit said Golubski would fixate on certain women, abusing them for years. 

One night in September 1992, the lawsuit alleges, Golubski found Houcks at a park and offered to drive her home, but instead drove her in the opposite direction, stopping at a small wooded area with a secluded field. There, he allegedly ordered her to get out of the car and “suck my dick.” He then forced her into the backseat of his unmarked police car, the lawsuit alleged, and raped her vaginally and anally while still wearing his badge and gun. When Houcks asked why he was doing it, he allegedly replied “Because I can.” Afterwards, the lawsuit alleged he forced her to perform oral sex on him.

When he dropped her off, he allegedly told Houcks “keep your mouth closed,” the lawsuit said. The next day, she said she traveled back to Missouri, where she lived, and went to a hospital but fled before police arrived to take down her complaint. The lawsuit said Golubski later threatened to charge her brother with a crime if she told anyone about the assault. 

According to the lawsuit, Golubski also helped cover up the murder of Newsom’s son, Doniel Quinn, in April 1994. Golubski approached her and sexually harassed her under the guise of pretending to investigate Quinn’s murder, allegedly asking her, “you ever think about dating a white police officer?” 

The lawsuit also accused Golubski of raping Niko Quinn’s 16-year-old sister Stacey in 1986; she was murdered in 2000. It said Golubski, Ware, and others forced Niko Quinn to falsely identify Doniel Quinn’s killer as a man named Lamonte McIntyre. When she tried to identify someone else, Golubski allegedly told her “something can happen to you” and a federal prosecutor threatened to have her children taken from her, the lawsuit said. McIntyre was wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for 23 years until he was freed in 2017.

For years afterwards, Golubski stalked Niko Quinn, the lawsuit alleged, making sexual advances and following her around while she shopped. It also alleged he assaulted her, though it said she can’t remember many details. She said she remembered “repeatedly pleading for Golubski to stop, crying out that it hurts.” 

In 1999, the lawsuit alleged Golubski falsely accused Williams’ twin sons, then 14, of a double homicide as part of a cover up. While officers detained the twins and 13-year-old younger son, Golubski allegedly made comments about Williams’ appearance in her home. Police then allegedly convinced the twins to confess to the murder, stating it was the only way their younger brother would be released. 

He later showed up at Williams’ home, claiming he could help her sons, and raped her, the lawsuit alleged. 

“After he finished, Golubski went into Williams’ kitchen and began wiping the bodily fluids off his penis with paper towels sitting on her table,” the lawsuit alleged. “Williams declared she was going to report him. Golubski responded, ‘Report me to who, the police? I am the police.’” 

The lawsuit alleged Williams continued to show up at Williams’ home and rape her every week or two for years, even when she moved to a new home. 

“During two encounters, Golubski told Williams she needed to quickly perform oral sex because his partner–Zeigler–was waiting in the patrol car.” the lawsuit alleged. Zeigler had been assigned to her sons’ case. He also allegedly forced her to perform oral sex on him while driving her around in his patrol car, cementing her reputation as a snitch and isolating her from community members. 

When she threatened to expose Golubski, he allegedly told her if she did “she would never be found again.” 

The lawsuit alleged in June 2002, Miller was woken up in the middle of the night because her father had been killed and she needed to identify him at the morgue. There, Kill and Bye allegedly showed her “a corpse that was so badly burned that it was unidentifiable,” causing her to break down. 

They repeatedly asked her if she killed her father, knew who did, and was in a sexual relationship with him, to which she said “no.” 

At one point during the questioning, while she was alone with Kill, the lawsuit alleged he began rubbing her shoulders and said “If you get on this table, I can make it all go away” while gesturing towards his penis. 

“I can turn off this camera, pull down my pants, and we can do what we need to do,” Kill told Miller, according to the lawsuit.  

The lawsuit went on to accuse the Unified Government of allowing this “unlawful terrorization” by police. 

“The predilections and abuses of Detective Defendants were well-known among (Kansas City police) officers and supervisors, including Police Chief Defendants. The squad room openly joked about mistreating Black women and the many ‘halfbreed’ offspring Golubski had likely fathered by his victims,” the lawsuit said. 

“These public officials, including Chiefs of Police, though warned, informed, and aware of these unconstitutional and criminal acts, permitted a terror that lasted decades, destroying lives and families.”