Sheila Albers read over the six-page document twice.
The mother of 17-year-old John Albers, who an Overland Park police officer fatally shot in 2018, was both infuriated and overwhelmed — she never expected the city to release the document so quickly after the judge’s order.
“My head’s about to blow off from just seeing how flawed the system is and how easy it is for the government to cut a deal and then the public never knows,” Sheila Albers told The Star in a phone call Friday morning.About an hour earlier, Overland Park had released its severance agreement with Clayton Jenison, the officer who shot and killed her son. A Johnson County District Court judge had ordered the release on Thursday after The Star sued the city under the Kansas Open Records Act.
The shooting occurred in January 2018, after police were called to the Albers home on a welfare check for the teen, who was believed to be suicidal. Jenison shot Albers six times as the teenager backed out of the driveway.
Jenison was paid $70,000 in severance when he left the department. He faced no criminal charge and his actions were deemed a “proper use of force” under Kansas law by Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe.
In a news release Friday, the city wrote that the Feb. 15, 2018 severance agreement “allowed the City to end Jenison’s employment quickly and decisively without a lawsuit, which could have resulted in Jenison remaining an employee of the City and the additional costs of litigation.”
The document released Friday says the city would report the separation to the Kansas Commission on Peace Officers’ Standards and Training as being a “voluntary resignation under ordinary circumstances” and say he resigned for “personal reasons.”
That line on the third page jumped out to Sheila Albers.
“It’s a classic example of what people call pass the trash,” she said, when an employer wants to get rid of an employee who did something wrong as easily as possible. “That is just so disgusting.”
An FAQ section the city released along with the document Friday says Jenison was not being investigated when he entered the agreement. Days earlier, the district attorney completed his criminal investigation. And just before that, the police chief concluded no law or policy was violated.
“They’re playing the date game,” Sheila Albers said. “They omitted he (had been) under investigation. Lying by omission is still a lie.”
Attorney Bernie Rhodes, who represented The Star in its lawsuit, said the detail about how the city reported Jenison’s separation to the Kansas CPOST is “why they’ve been hiding this document.”
Because the city approached Jenison through his attorney to initiate a discussion and negotiate the severance agreement, as the city’s statement described, the police department should have told CPOST that Jenison involuntarily resigned to avoid legal action, Rhodes said. In receiving the $70,000, the agreement said Jenison would not take legal action against the city.
“The severance agreement confirms the cover-up that so many people in the community have thought has been occurring,” he said.
When an officer’s employment status changes, a form is sent to CPOST, which oversees the licensing of law enforcement officers in the state, explaining the circumstances.
An officer can voluntarily leave under ordinary circumstances, voluntarily leave under questionable circumstances, involuntarily resign or be terminated.
Permitting Jenison to resign under ordinary circumstances meant he could be hired by a different police department especially since at the time, his name had not been released.
Jenison’s current certification status is in good standing and inactive, said CPOST commission counsel Michelle Meier.
The CPOST form is signed by the head of the police department under penalty of perjury.
Meier said if there were grounds to believe a law enforcement officer knowingly submitted false or misleading documents, it could be investigated.
“The Police Department agreed that this was the accurate choice in the CPOST document,” city spokesman Sean Reilly said in an emailed statement Friday.
Sheila Albers called the police chief’s decision a “slap in the face” to policing, saying “he is passing problems off to other communities.”
“I think it means that it’s proof to the public that we have people in government who are misrepresenting the truth in order to make problems go away.”
In the FAQ section, Overland Park said it approached Jenison about the separation agreement because the high-profile nature of the shooting meant Jenison could no longer “effectively serve the community.”
But in a 2018 interview with FOX4, Overland Park Police Chief Frank Donchez had said Jenison was never encouraged to leave the force.
“He left before we even had those discussions,” Donchez said.
The agreement also says the city wold not provide any information to media about Jenison’s status before the district attorney decided on criminal charges and to tell media after the decision that Jenison resigned for “personal reasons.”
The city promised not to release records related to Jenison’s employment unless required to by law.
After the shooting, Sheila Albers formed a group called JOCOUnited and became an advocate for changes in state law aimed at casting more light on the disciplinary actions taken against law enforcement officers.
In January 2019, the Albers family settled a lawsuit against Overland Park for $2.3 million. The suit claimed Jenison acted recklessly and violated Albers’ constitutional rights.
In July 2020, the police department amended its use of force policy to prohibit shooting at or from a moving vehicle “unless someone inside the vehicle is using or threatening lethal force … by means other than the vehicle itself.”
Overland Park City Councilman Chris Newlin, who represents the ward Sheila Albers lives in, said he is taking steps to ensure what happened to John Albers never happens again.
Newlin chairs the Overland Park Mental Health Task Force and pushed for Donchez to mandate crisis intervention training for all officers.
Newlin had been a councilman for about two weeks at the time of the shooting. He called it a “horrific day.”
He said he could understand Sheila Albers’ concern that the city misled CPOST. He pointed to the FAQ that says the agency investigated Jenison’s resignation and closed it without further action in March 2020.
“To me, CPOST did their job,” Newlin said. “How they did their job I have no idea.”
Newlin said the mental health task force will make recommendations to City Council in May, including recommending the city and police department expand the crisis intervention team and co-responders coverage time to 24/7. Right now, he said, it’s only Monday through Friday.
He added that he is glad the city released the document without appealing the judge’s ruling.
The Star’s Katie Bernard contributed to this story.