January 19, 2026 • 28 mins
Roger Golubski’s story exposed decades worth of corruption at the heart of Kansas City Kansas, a systemic failure to hold perpetrators to account. In this episode, we explore how Wyandotte County’s current District Attorney is working to weed out corruption and enact change.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, This is Rafara and the producer of The girl
Friends Untouchable. In this episode, we'll be exploring the lens
the authorities when to try and fight corruption in Kansas City.
While there's a lot of hope in this episode, as
well as stories of how people push back against a
broken system, there will also be some discussion of murder
and sexual assault. If you or someone you love has
(00:21):
been affected by any of the themes that come up
in this episode, we've left some links in the description
that offer resources and support. Take care of yourself. Okay,
let's address the elephant in the room. You are not
hearing the dulcet tones of Nicki Bridgardson or Kadija Hardaway.
As you can probably tell, I don't even have an
(00:42):
American accent, but as the producer of this series, I
spent the past year having hours worth of conversations with
people from Kansas City about Roger Glubski and the corruption
his story exposed. However, Kansas City isn't an outlier. Police
corruption and institutional racist is an international problem that often
(01:02):
affects black and marginalized people the most. Stories like these
shake our trusts in the institutions designed to protect us.
But we can't just sit by and despair. If we
want to see real change, It's up to us, the people,
to speak truth to power and hold these institutions to account.
(01:28):
In this series, we've had two different approaches to change
in the system. One group of people want to change
things from the ground up by challenging those institutions, like
Nikki and Khadija.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
You know me and you didn't go into this to
make friends, right. We went in there to do the
right thing.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
And we've also heard from people who want to change
the system from within, like Mark Debris, the first black
district attorney in Windot County's history, who came into public
service after a life of community activism.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Lord pushed me into this to tackle injustice from the
inside out.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Given what people in Wye Dot County have been through,
it's not surprising that different groups have strong feelings about
how to move forward. Both are trying to change the
system for the better, but which method is more effective?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
If you are really looking to change the system, you
can't do it by working within it.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
I can sleep at night knowing that I did my
part bringing justice to this community.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Oh God, God, God, I'm refarra Masaruvera from the teens
at novel and I Hot podcasts. This is the Girlfriend's Untouchable.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
You Big.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Bonus, Episode four, The Government's Guide to Making a Change.
Mark Dupree is a man who's taken on various different
roles in his community. He's a pastor, a lawyer, an activist,
(03:30):
and a politician, and he believes that the systems checkered
past is exactly why good folks must get involved and
shake it up from the inside.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
I was born and raised here in Kansas City, Kansas,
in the Inner City. My parents were Pentecostal pastors, so
we did a lot of ministry work, dealing with gangs
and trying to help our community in ministry.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Du Preden only want to get into law to fight
against injustice because was the right thing to do. One
of the reasons he wanted to get into the justice
system was because he belongs to the group most likely
to be racially profiled and mistreated by the police.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
As a black man in America, it was very clear
that the system had biases and still does and as
a black man in this country, growing up, I had
to learn how to adjust. I had to learn how
not to be a victim, and so I was taught
by my parents, right, if you're driving as a young
(04:32):
black man, to always have your wallet on the dashboard
and never to make any such movements.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
He also knew that if a black man like him
became the victim of a crime, he couldn't necessarily trust
the cops to come to his rescue.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
There was often victims of crime in my community and
we would see the perpetrator not be arrested, justice wouldn't come.
That's why I became a criminal defense lawyer and see
the victimization of my community members in the system not
working to help them. It was at the age of
(05:08):
fourteen where I had an opportunity to meet an African
American judge and I went down to the courthouse and
I walked into the courthouse and that one day shadow
experience turned into a seven year mentor mentee relationship. He
taught me that I can do more than pray, that
(05:29):
I could be involved in the criminal justice system, and
that led me to go into law and graduate from
law school and worked for judge and then I did
public defense work for some years.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Growing up in the nineteen nineties, topre belonged to the
generation the felt the promise of the civil rights movement
had not been realized. The cracker cane epidemic and so
called war on drugs had devastated black communities across the
States in the late eighties and the early nineties saw
a of public unrests when the brutal beating of Rodney
King at the hands of police officers sparked the La riots.
Speaker 5 (06:07):
Coming out of the civil rights movement.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
We're trying to get into fairness and equality and that
everyone has a right, black, brown, broke everyone. We're all equal. Well,
not everyone agreed with that. You have people who were
in authority and who could police those black and brown communities,
but still have their same old school mentality that you
(06:31):
do what I say because I can make you do it.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Do pre went into practicing law with an air of optimism.
He was ready to fight for justice and make a
difference in his community, but he quickly realized that the
actions of the courts and the law of prosecutorial incentives
could sometimes get in the way of justice.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
As a prosecutor, the old school mindset was the more
cases I win, the more convictions I get, the more
notches that come onto my belt and what you find
historically again across the country is you have forty six
(07:13):
percent of all wrongful convictions are due to prosecutorial misconduct.
The police were the ones who was given the authority
to keep everyone safe, while at the same time their
biases as human beings came through. Because of that a
(07:39):
culture that allowed that authority to go to some folks' heads,
and if you were the badge at that time, you
got to do pretty much whatever you wanted to do.
And so how does something like this happen? I think
it's the lack of text and balances that was there.
I think it absolutely was discrimination and racism that was occurring,
(08:00):
and then the lack of accountability. Now, we later find
that in the eighties and in the nineties that that
police department was being investigated by the Department and Justice,
and was being investigated by others, but none of those
things were able to stick to the point that records
were shredded.
Speaker 5 (08:19):
That's not the story of just that department.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
That's the story of this country specifically during that time.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
It was in light of these facts the Marketer Priest
set his sights on the District Attorney's office.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
I decided to run for DA twenty fourteen. I ran
as the DA to make change, to hold people accountable,
to hear the community, and to be in the community.
Speaker 5 (08:49):
And that's what I did.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
And so the citizens of this community wanted to get
rid of all of those allegations of corruption, and quite frankly,
many of those folks had experience and had been touched
by the system and the flaws that were in it.
The community still believes in making these changes and holding
(09:12):
people accountable, not just those outside the system, but holding
people accountable inside the system.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Mark Duprix was elected in twenty sixteen, taking office as
Kansas's first black DA in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
I am the only African American elected DA in.
Speaker 5 (09:30):
The entire state of Kansas.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
In twenty seventeen, I was, and I still am. Before me,
everyone who sat in this chief Law Enforcement official seat
at the DA was not a person of color, and
across the country to this day, ninety two percent of
those who are sitting in elected DA seats are white men.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
As soon as the assumed office, the people of Wyandot
County started knocking on his door, sending emails a mail
calls because the community was desperate for change. One of
Dupre's first major breakthroughs was the exoneration of Lamont McIntyre,
But that was just the start.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
After we finished with Lamont's case, I had seen too
much information that said, you know what, I can't just
sit silent, right And many people said, well, Dupre, just
leave it alone.
Speaker 5 (10:21):
You don't want to get into it.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
He's been a dedicated officer for all these years, you know,
just leave it up.
Speaker 5 (10:27):
Well, that's that good old boy mentality.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
I scratched your back, you scratched mind, and I felt
like that, Yes, McIntyre had an injustice done to him,
but quite frankly, for forty years this individual had been
on the force, and I dare not say that he
was the only one doing this type of foolishness.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Dupre had heard rumors that prosecutors, police officers, and people
working in positions of authority had abused their power, but
he was about to find out that that corruption ran
even deeper, realization that would force him to push back
against the very office he'd assumed. After the break, we'll
(11:11):
hear what Mark Deprix has been able to achieve and
explore some of the limits to his agenda for reform.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
And go you, You, and God You.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
After McIntyre was exonerated in twenty seventeen, Wyin Dot County's
first black DA, Mark Duprix got to work addressing the
issues he saw when it came to the way the
justice system treated people in his community.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Doing this work, I came to the conclusion that it
was not just about protecting those who are outside the system,
but it is about making sure that the system itself
is doing what is right and what is just. It's
about doing justice and making sure that the victims of
(12:05):
all races are taken care of. And you don't just
win by any means necessary. You win based off of
the law, and if you lose based off of the law,
guess what. The law still did its job.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
But he saw that the DA's office hadn't always made
fairness and justice to priority when it came to how
they treated people. In fact, he was kind of horrified
when he saw how elements within his new office had
operated in the past. He believed there had been miscarriages
of justice, threatening of witnesses, and a failure to take
a stand against sexual violence. Law enforcement wasn't just protecting
(12:42):
and serving his community the way they were supposed to
on some occasions they were actively harming them, and the
District Attorney's office hadn't been doing enough to challenge them.
Speaker 5 (12:52):
I'll tell you, I think it's important to note.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
It's one thing to know corruption exists, right, or you
you can feel they're not treating us right. It's something
to know that on the outside of the system looking in.
It's a whole other thing when you're actually in the
(13:16):
system and you're the DA and you.
Speaker 5 (13:19):
Actually have the evidence to show I wasn't dripping. This
was real. I knew they were biased.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
I was like, oh, wow, really.
Speaker 5 (13:36):
And so how did that make me feel?
Speaker 3 (13:39):
It made me feel like, uh, you know, despite me
not ever wanting to be the prosecutor, I now see why.
I see why I'm here. I believe the Lord pushed
me into this, and it was for a greater cause.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
The system was broken. Wyandot County needed change and that
could only come with a real, true reckoning. Sir Mark
Dupre pushed for Prosecutor Tara Moorehead to be held to account,
but going up against people in positions of power like
Morehead isn't easy.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Tera Moore hit, who was a seasoned prosecutor who had
a desire to make sure she'd climbed the letter, but.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Dupre looking into the mcintie case put a spotlight on
Tara Moorehead's history of alleged misconduct, an investigation that led
to her being called before a panel at the Kansas
Board for Discipline of Attorneys and surrendering her license to
practice law. The Kansas Supreme Court formerly dispired her in
April twenty twenty four, but one official facing scrutiny wasn't enough.
(14:48):
The mcintie case had revealed a culture of intimidating witnesses
and failing to protect victims, a pattern that could only
thrive in an office that lacked accountability. So duprisa to
try and create safeguards to protect victims and witnesses and
ensure the integrity of the justice process.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
The law has changed quite a bit, right, you can't
threaten a witness.
Speaker 5 (15:11):
That's the biggest thing. You can't threat witnesses.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
But more importantly, there are offices in place where now
those individuals have the ability to report when it happens,
so that prosecutors who are going rogue, can get penalized,
can lose their license, not just their job, but their
license to practice law. So there's been huge change in
(15:37):
what I would say in reform into accountability for not
just prosecutors, but for lawyers and law enforcement alike.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
As well as championing more community focused policing. The DA
set out to change the culture in his own office.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
I came in and I had to release I believe
six or nine prosecuting attorneys. It left me with very
few and I had to hurry up and hire a
whole bunch of new ones.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
It's important to note that the Italese Daye pre released
are not publicly accused of or implicated in any wrongdoing.
According to our reporting, Debrie's reforms drew a hard line,
which made him enemies the old God who were used
to being in power. We're not about to vanish withou
putting up a fight.
Speaker 5 (16:21):
It was tough, you know, all kinds of things. I
received death threats.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
All of this stuff happened because we wanted real justice
from the inside out. My children had to grow up
in a way that I didn't. They had to experience, unfortunately,
teachers who were married to law enforcement who talk bad
about their father. Teachers would come to my kids and
(16:48):
tell them that your father hates police.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
But Dupre remained seidfast.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
I think the best thing that can happen for this
community is that they see accountability, that no one is
above the law.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Dupries started working with the FBI. He took them around
the community and they began digging around.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
They sent it over to the US Attorney's Office for
actual prosecution, at which point then the question became, how
do we get some of these witnesses who may have
been victimized by this detective Dupries.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Changes over the past few years have been wide ranging.
Oh School prosecutors have been phased out, bad prosecutors have
been taken out of commission, and the police department's culture
has started to change, while some residents are still unhappy
about what they perceive as a lack of real measurable change.
The way dupreputs it, why Dot County is moving forward.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
We have a new police chief, an African American police
chief who grew up here in this community. As many
of those officers and detectives during that era has retired
moved on, and so we have a police department who
is really focused on justice and every community, and our
crime rate has gratefully decreased over twenty seven percent, and
(18:12):
where community based.
Speaker 5 (18:14):
We're focused on the community.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
What we've done in our office is made sure from
the top that training is known. We've also made it
very clear that witnesses and victims of crime are our partners.
They are not to simply do what we say when
we say it. It was normal practice for threats to
be made, and if prosecutors approach them as you need
(18:38):
to do what I tell you to do because I
need to close this case, then that's where the culture
of threatening witnesses, the culture of creating evidence, the culture
of withholding evidence, the culture of winning by any means,
that's where that culture is formed.
Speaker 5 (18:56):
So again, there's been great reform. We're focused on the
community and seeing.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
That they have individuals righting wrongs, built that trust that says,
maybe my grandmother couldn't trust them, but right now we
have the ability to trust in a law enforcement and
in a DA who really cares.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
When I initially talked to DA Dupree, I got the
sense that change was actually happening, that Kansas City and
the rest of Wine Dot County were about to transform.
Duprez are compelling talker. He knows the right points to
tana journalist, and hearing him speak sometimes felt like being
in a Sunday morning Salmon I was buying into the
vision he was laying out, and it felt like he
(19:44):
really did believe that you can change the system from
the inside. But there are people like our girl friends
Nicki and Kadija who believe that the most effective way
to create change is to challenge the systems of authority
and speak truth to which we'll hear more about after the.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
Break and you glad you and God you.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Marked depres. Making history by becoming Kansas's first black district
attorney is something that Nikki and Kadija respect, But making
history doesn't make you immune to criticism. Each time I've
spoken to them, I've gotten this sense that there's still
a lot of unfinished business in wyan Dot County search
for justice. Some people feel that Dupree's administration hasn't gone
(20:46):
far enough when it comes to supporting the victims and
survivors who spoke up but haven't gotten justice yet.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
In the case of Nico, her story was riddled with abuse,
sexual rare meant by Gelupski, prosecutorial misconduct by Terror Moorehead.
Her story was not used to charge those people with
any crimes or look in and investigate into any of that.
Nobody listened to her beyond exonerating Lamont McIntyre, and so
(21:18):
that left NKO feeling very used.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
The women has shared that stories put themselves out on
the line, and some of them aren't sure it was why.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
That a lot of the pathways of justice was wrapped
up in that federal trial, and when Gulupski committed suicide,
that pretty much ended that pathway. We were working with
the Department of Justice on creating new pathways of systemic
change for wind Dot County to resolve some of these issues,
but the external factor of the Trump administration has completely
(21:51):
broken down that relationship.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
When I spoke to Depris, it almost seemed as if
he was describing an idealized version of Windot County. But
Nikki thinks this outlook missus the mock because she feels
like the old God still calls the shots.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
The corruption, the nepotism, the lack of care about people
who don't look like you, or who are marginalized, or
who have a harder life, those biases really have seeped
their way into the culture of our local government and
it has really shaped the policies that have been made
over the years, and.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
According to Niki, there are some straightforward changes that d
Dupree could push FORULL to improve the lives of people
in the community.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Mark dupri has every ability in his elected position to
do a lot more than what he is doing. I
strongly feel that Wandotte County should be decriminalized for marijuana use.
They use marijuana possession to target black and brown people, specifically,
especially in the East area. And he could just make
(22:53):
the decision that in his office he is not going
to prosecute marijuana possession, and then that d in Sient
advises the police department from even looking at marijuana possession,
and that protects his community. And that is something he
has the entire authority to do and he doesn't need
anybody else to do it. But he's not doing it.
Policing the black and brown community is a part of
(23:15):
the system that upholds his job. Right, How can you
not try to do something more or at least be
more vocal about it in the public.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
But Nicki and Kadija don't see it as just to
depreach you. It's an issue with power itself.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Can you really change the system by just working within it,
and there's a lot in you. You've got to have
more than just him, and then he's got whole thats
got to change the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
But while they were hesitant to work with the authorities,
they've seen the impact that being persistent can have on
creating change within the system, for example. And that's sup
pole of the Conviction Integrity Unit to presopp it was
an initiative to empower the community to challenge law and force.
It later became the Community Integrity Unit and now gives
(24:04):
the community even more powers to scrutinize and challenge law
enforcement in Wine Dot County, a sign that's sometimes working
together can be the most effective way to change things.
Speaker 6 (24:15):
Unless the community rallied around Mark depri for an initiative,
he doesn't have much he can do without the backing
of community. That's how we got the Conviction Integrity Unit.
He would not have been able to do that had
we not supported that. If there was no grassroots organization
in Wine Dot County, this would not be happening. And
(24:37):
so every community does need to establish some sort of
grassroots organization that holds these government institutions accountable. What will
always work is fellowship and engagement, and as long as
we are continuing to build together and collectively sharing our
(24:57):
stories and collectively doing work, we outnumber them. And I
think being able to have avenues where the community can
actually see what's really going on behind the curtain would
go a long way to make sure that there are
accountability measures in place, but also build trust.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Wyan Dot County and Kansas City, Kansas still have a
long way to go, but the Gallupski story made people
realize that nobody is above the law and a lot
of progress can be made when a community comes together
to hold power to account. Since the story came to light,
(25:38):
Nicking Kadija have seen more people coming together, putting a
spotlight on potential wrongdoing and calling it out. While they
don't always see eye to eye and have different opinions
on how to enact change, officials like Math and activists
like Nicking Kadija are doing the crucial work it takes
improve their community and protect its people's rights.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
I believe in some ways we were moving in the
right direction. We just have so much that we have
to make up for the road.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Justice can be long and arduous, often littered with more
stepbacks than tangible signs of progress. Pushing back against old
systems isn't comfortable, and change can take years, decades even,
But when you love your city and are that deeply
invested in its future, it's a journey worth fighting for.
(26:35):
In the next episode of The girl Friends Untouchable, Kadida
will be having a really thought provoking conversation with doctor
Marvel Parker, whose husband Wheeler Parker, was a witness to
his cousin Emmett Till's kidnapping at the hands of a
lynch mob.
Speaker 7 (26:50):
The open caskin funeral of Immitil is said to have
been the catalyst that sparked the civil rights movement. Rosa
park said, when she refused to give her seat up
on the bus, she thought about Immittiel and she stayed
in her seat. And we know that one act was
the birth of the Montgomery bus boycott that brought that
to Kina Town, that gave birth to the civil rights movement.
(27:13):
Emmit's death was the spark.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
The Girlfriend's Untouchable is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts.
For more from Novel, visit novel dot Audio. This episode
was hosted by me Referro Mazarura. It was produced by
Mohammed Ahmed and Refarro Mazarura. The editor is Joe Wheeler.
The researcher is Sayana Yusef. Production management from Charie Houston
(27:50):
and Joe Savage. The fact checker is Fendo Fulton. Sound design,
mixing and scoring by Daniel Kempson with additional engineering by
Nicholas Alas Alexander. Music supervision by Refara Mazarura, Nicholas Alexander
and Joe Wheeler. Original music by Amanda Jones. The series
artwork was designed by Christina Limcol. Novel Director of Development
(28:15):
is Selena Metta. Willard Foxton is Novel's creative director of Development.
Max O'Brien and Craig Strachan are executive producers for Novel.
Katrina Novel and Nikki Etel are the executive producers for
iHeart Podcasts. The marketing lead is Alison Cantel. Special thanks
to will Pearson and a special thanks to Carli Frankel
(28:35):
and the whole team at wm E
Hi, This is Rafara and the producer of The girl
Friends Untouchable. In this episode, we'll be exploring the lens
the authorities when to try and fight corruption in Kansas City.
While there's a lot of hope in this episode, as
well as stories of how people push back against a
broken system, there will also be some discussion of murder
and sexual assault. If you or someone you love has
(00:21):
been affected by any of the themes that come up
in this episode, we've left some links in the description
that offer resources and support. Take care of yourself. Okay,
let's address the elephant in the room. You are not
hearing the dulcet tones of Nicki Bridgardson or Kadija Hardaway.
As you can probably tell, I don't even have an
(00:42):
American accent, but as the producer of this series, I
spent the past year having hours worth of conversations with
people from Kansas City about Roger Glubski and the corruption
his story exposed. However, Kansas City isn't an outlier. Police
corruption and institutional racist is an international problem that often
(01:02):
affects black and marginalized people the most. Stories like these
shake our trusts in the institutions designed to protect us.
But we can't just sit by and despair. If we
want to see real change, It's up to us, the people,
to speak truth to power and hold these institutions to account.
(01:28):
In this series, we've had two different approaches to change
in the system. One group of people want to change
things from the ground up by challenging those institutions, like
Nikki and Khadija.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
You know me and you didn't go into this to
make friends, right. We went in there to do the
right thing.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
And we've also heard from people who want to change
the system from within, like Mark Debris, the first black
district attorney in Windot County's history, who came into public
service after a life of community activism.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Lord pushed me into this to tackle injustice from the
inside out.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Given what people in Wye Dot County have been through,
it's not surprising that different groups have strong feelings about
how to move forward. Both are trying to change the
system for the better, but which method is more effective?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
If you are really looking to change the system, you
can't do it by working within it.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
I can sleep at night knowing that I did my
part bringing justice to this community.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Oh God, God, God, I'm refarra Masaruvera from the teens
at novel and I Hot podcasts. This is the Girlfriend's Untouchable.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
You Big.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Bonus, Episode four, The Government's Guide to Making a Change.
Mark Dupree is a man who's taken on various different
roles in his community. He's a pastor, a lawyer, an activist,
(03:30):
and a politician, and he believes that the systems checkered
past is exactly why good folks must get involved and
shake it up from the inside.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
I was born and raised here in Kansas City, Kansas,
in the Inner City. My parents were Pentecostal pastors, so
we did a lot of ministry work, dealing with gangs
and trying to help our community in ministry.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Du Preden only want to get into law to fight
against injustice because was the right thing to do. One
of the reasons he wanted to get into the justice
system was because he belongs to the group most likely
to be racially profiled and mistreated by the police.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
As a black man in America, it was very clear
that the system had biases and still does and as
a black man in this country, growing up, I had
to learn how to adjust. I had to learn how
not to be a victim, and so I was taught
by my parents, right, if you're driving as a young
(04:32):
black man, to always have your wallet on the dashboard
and never to make any such movements.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
He also knew that if a black man like him
became the victim of a crime, he couldn't necessarily trust
the cops to come to his rescue.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
There was often victims of crime in my community and
we would see the perpetrator not be arrested, justice wouldn't come.
That's why I became a criminal defense lawyer and see
the victimization of my community members in the system not
working to help them. It was at the age of
(05:08):
fourteen where I had an opportunity to meet an African
American judge and I went down to the courthouse and
I walked into the courthouse and that one day shadow
experience turned into a seven year mentor mentee relationship. He
taught me that I can do more than pray, that
(05:29):
I could be involved in the criminal justice system, and
that led me to go into law and graduate from
law school and worked for judge and then I did
public defense work for some years.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Growing up in the nineteen nineties, topre belonged to the
generation the felt the promise of the civil rights movement
had not been realized. The cracker cane epidemic and so
called war on drugs had devastated black communities across the
States in the late eighties and the early nineties saw
a of public unrests when the brutal beating of Rodney
King at the hands of police officers sparked the La riots.
Speaker 5 (06:07):
Coming out of the civil rights movement.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
We're trying to get into fairness and equality and that
everyone has a right, black, brown, broke everyone. We're all equal. Well,
not everyone agreed with that. You have people who were
in authority and who could police those black and brown communities,
but still have their same old school mentality that you
(06:31):
do what I say because I can make you do it.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Do pre went into practicing law with an air of optimism.
He was ready to fight for justice and make a
difference in his community, but he quickly realized that the
actions of the courts and the law of prosecutorial incentives
could sometimes get in the way of justice.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
As a prosecutor, the old school mindset was the more
cases I win, the more convictions I get, the more
notches that come onto my belt and what you find
historically again across the country is you have forty six
(07:13):
percent of all wrongful convictions are due to prosecutorial misconduct.
The police were the ones who was given the authority
to keep everyone safe, while at the same time their
biases as human beings came through. Because of that a
(07:39):
culture that allowed that authority to go to some folks' heads,
and if you were the badge at that time, you
got to do pretty much whatever you wanted to do.
And so how does something like this happen? I think
it's the lack of text and balances that was there.
I think it absolutely was discrimination and racism that was occurring,
(08:00):
and then the lack of accountability. Now, we later find
that in the eighties and in the nineties that that
police department was being investigated by the Department and Justice,
and was being investigated by others, but none of those
things were able to stick to the point that records
were shredded.
Speaker 5 (08:19):
That's not the story of just that department.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
That's the story of this country specifically during that time.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
It was in light of these facts the Marketer Priest
set his sights on the District Attorney's office.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
I decided to run for DA twenty fourteen. I ran
as the DA to make change, to hold people accountable,
to hear the community, and to be in the community.
Speaker 5 (08:49):
And that's what I did.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
And so the citizens of this community wanted to get
rid of all of those allegations of corruption, and quite frankly,
many of those folks had experience and had been touched
by the system and the flaws that were in it.
The community still believes in making these changes and holding
(09:12):
people accountable, not just those outside the system, but holding
people accountable inside the system.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Mark Duprix was elected in twenty sixteen, taking office as
Kansas's first black DA in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
I am the only African American elected DA in.
Speaker 5 (09:30):
The entire state of Kansas.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
In twenty seventeen, I was, and I still am. Before me,
everyone who sat in this chief Law Enforcement official seat
at the DA was not a person of color, and
across the country to this day, ninety two percent of
those who are sitting in elected DA seats are white men.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
As soon as the assumed office, the people of Wyandot
County started knocking on his door, sending emails a mail
calls because the community was desperate for change. One of
Dupre's first major breakthroughs was the exoneration of Lamont McIntyre,
But that was just the start.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
After we finished with Lamont's case, I had seen too
much information that said, you know what, I can't just
sit silent, right And many people said, well, Dupre, just
leave it alone.
Speaker 5 (10:21):
You don't want to get into it.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
He's been a dedicated officer for all these years, you know,
just leave it up.
Speaker 5 (10:27):
Well, that's that good old boy mentality.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
I scratched your back, you scratched mind, and I felt
like that, Yes, McIntyre had an injustice done to him,
but quite frankly, for forty years this individual had been
on the force, and I dare not say that he
was the only one doing this type of foolishness.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Dupre had heard rumors that prosecutors, police officers, and people
working in positions of authority had abused their power, but
he was about to find out that that corruption ran
even deeper, realization that would force him to push back
against the very office he'd assumed. After the break, we'll
(11:11):
hear what Mark Deprix has been able to achieve and
explore some of the limits to his agenda for reform.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
And go you, You, and God You.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
After McIntyre was exonerated in twenty seventeen, Wyin Dot County's
first black DA, Mark Duprix got to work addressing the
issues he saw when it came to the way the
justice system treated people in his community.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Doing this work, I came to the conclusion that it
was not just about protecting those who are outside the system,
but it is about making sure that the system itself
is doing what is right and what is just. It's
about doing justice and making sure that the victims of
(12:05):
all races are taken care of. And you don't just
win by any means necessary. You win based off of
the law, and if you lose based off of the law,
guess what. The law still did its job.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
But he saw that the DA's office hadn't always made
fairness and justice to priority when it came to how
they treated people. In fact, he was kind of horrified
when he saw how elements within his new office had
operated in the past. He believed there had been miscarriages
of justice, threatening of witnesses, and a failure to take
a stand against sexual violence. Law enforcement wasn't just protecting
(12:42):
and serving his community the way they were supposed to
on some occasions they were actively harming them, and the
District Attorney's office hadn't been doing enough to challenge them.
Speaker 5 (12:52):
I'll tell you, I think it's important to note.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
It's one thing to know corruption exists, right, or you
you can feel they're not treating us right. It's something
to know that on the outside of the system looking in.
It's a whole other thing when you're actually in the
(13:16):
system and you're the DA and you.
Speaker 5 (13:19):
Actually have the evidence to show I wasn't dripping. This
was real. I knew they were biased.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
I was like, oh, wow, really.
Speaker 5 (13:36):
And so how did that make me feel?
Speaker 3 (13:39):
It made me feel like, uh, you know, despite me
not ever wanting to be the prosecutor, I now see why.
I see why I'm here. I believe the Lord pushed
me into this, and it was for a greater cause.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
The system was broken. Wyandot County needed change and that
could only come with a real, true reckoning. Sir Mark
Dupre pushed for Prosecutor Tara Moorehead to be held to account,
but going up against people in positions of power like
Morehead isn't easy.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Tera Moore hit, who was a seasoned prosecutor who had
a desire to make sure she'd climbed the letter, but.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Dupre looking into the mcintie case put a spotlight on
Tara Moorehead's history of alleged misconduct, an investigation that led
to her being called before a panel at the Kansas
Board for Discipline of Attorneys and surrendering her license to
practice law. The Kansas Supreme Court formerly dispired her in
April twenty twenty four, but one official facing scrutiny wasn't enough.
(14:48):
The mcintie case had revealed a culture of intimidating witnesses
and failing to protect victims, a pattern that could only
thrive in an office that lacked accountability. So duprisa to
try and create safeguards to protect victims and witnesses and
ensure the integrity of the justice process.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
The law has changed quite a bit, right, you can't
threaten a witness.
Speaker 5 (15:11):
That's the biggest thing. You can't threat witnesses.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
But more importantly, there are offices in place where now
those individuals have the ability to report when it happens,
so that prosecutors who are going rogue, can get penalized,
can lose their license, not just their job, but their
license to practice law. So there's been huge change in
(15:37):
what I would say in reform into accountability for not
just prosecutors, but for lawyers and law enforcement alike.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
As well as championing more community focused policing. The DA
set out to change the culture in his own office.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
I came in and I had to release I believe
six or nine prosecuting attorneys. It left me with very
few and I had to hurry up and hire a
whole bunch of new ones.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
It's important to note that the Italese Daye pre released
are not publicly accused of or implicated in any wrongdoing.
According to our reporting, Debrie's reforms drew a hard line,
which made him enemies the old God who were used
to being in power. We're not about to vanish withou
putting up a fight.
Speaker 5 (16:21):
It was tough, you know, all kinds of things. I
received death threats.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
All of this stuff happened because we wanted real justice
from the inside out. My children had to grow up
in a way that I didn't. They had to experience, unfortunately,
teachers who were married to law enforcement who talk bad
about their father. Teachers would come to my kids and
(16:48):
tell them that your father hates police.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
But Dupre remained seidfast.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
I think the best thing that can happen for this
community is that they see accountability, that no one is
above the law.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Dupries started working with the FBI. He took them around
the community and they began digging around.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
They sent it over to the US Attorney's Office for
actual prosecution, at which point then the question became, how
do we get some of these witnesses who may have
been victimized by this detective Dupries.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Changes over the past few years have been wide ranging.
Oh School prosecutors have been phased out, bad prosecutors have
been taken out of commission, and the police department's culture
has started to change, while some residents are still unhappy
about what they perceive as a lack of real measurable change.
The way dupreputs it, why Dot County is moving forward.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
We have a new police chief, an African American police
chief who grew up here in this community. As many
of those officers and detectives during that era has retired
moved on, and so we have a police department who
is really focused on justice and every community, and our
crime rate has gratefully decreased over twenty seven percent, and
(18:12):
where community based.
Speaker 5 (18:14):
We're focused on the community.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
What we've done in our office is made sure from
the top that training is known. We've also made it
very clear that witnesses and victims of crime are our partners.
They are not to simply do what we say when
we say it. It was normal practice for threats to
be made, and if prosecutors approach them as you need
(18:38):
to do what I tell you to do because I
need to close this case, then that's where the culture
of threatening witnesses, the culture of creating evidence, the culture
of withholding evidence, the culture of winning by any means,
that's where that culture is formed.
Speaker 5 (18:56):
So again, there's been great reform. We're focused on the
community and seeing.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
That they have individuals righting wrongs, built that trust that says,
maybe my grandmother couldn't trust them, but right now we
have the ability to trust in a law enforcement and
in a DA who really cares.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
When I initially talked to DA Dupree, I got the
sense that change was actually happening, that Kansas City and
the rest of Wine Dot County were about to transform.
Duprez are compelling talker. He knows the right points to
tana journalist, and hearing him speak sometimes felt like being
in a Sunday morning Salmon I was buying into the
vision he was laying out, and it felt like he
(19:44):
really did believe that you can change the system from
the inside. But there are people like our girl friends
Nicki and Kadija who believe that the most effective way
to create change is to challenge the systems of authority
and speak truth to which we'll hear more about after the.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
Break and you glad you and God you.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Marked depres. Making history by becoming Kansas's first black district
attorney is something that Nikki and Kadija respect, But making
history doesn't make you immune to criticism. Each time I've
spoken to them, I've gotten this sense that there's still
a lot of unfinished business in wyan Dot County search
for justice. Some people feel that Dupree's administration hasn't gone
(20:46):
far enough when it comes to supporting the victims and
survivors who spoke up but haven't gotten justice yet.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
In the case of Nico, her story was riddled with abuse,
sexual rare meant by Gelupski, prosecutorial misconduct by Terror Moorehead.
Her story was not used to charge those people with
any crimes or look in and investigate into any of that.
Nobody listened to her beyond exonerating Lamont McIntyre, and so
(21:18):
that left NKO feeling very used.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
The women has shared that stories put themselves out on
the line, and some of them aren't sure it was why.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
That a lot of the pathways of justice was wrapped
up in that federal trial, and when Gulupski committed suicide,
that pretty much ended that pathway. We were working with
the Department of Justice on creating new pathways of systemic
change for wind Dot County to resolve some of these issues,
but the external factor of the Trump administration has completely
(21:51):
broken down that relationship.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
When I spoke to Depris, it almost seemed as if
he was describing an idealized version of Windot County. But
Nikki thinks this outlook missus the mock because she feels
like the old God still calls the shots.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
The corruption, the nepotism, the lack of care about people
who don't look like you, or who are marginalized, or
who have a harder life, those biases really have seeped
their way into the culture of our local government and
it has really shaped the policies that have been made
over the years, and.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
According to Niki, there are some straightforward changes that d
Dupree could push FORULL to improve the lives of people
in the community.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Mark dupri has every ability in his elected position to
do a lot more than what he is doing. I
strongly feel that Wandotte County should be decriminalized for marijuana use.
They use marijuana possession to target black and brown people, specifically,
especially in the East area. And he could just make
(22:53):
the decision that in his office he is not going
to prosecute marijuana possession, and then that d in Sient
advises the police department from even looking at marijuana possession,
and that protects his community. And that is something he
has the entire authority to do and he doesn't need
anybody else to do it. But he's not doing it.
Policing the black and brown community is a part of
(23:15):
the system that upholds his job. Right, How can you
not try to do something more or at least be
more vocal about it in the public.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
But Nicki and Kadija don't see it as just to
depreach you. It's an issue with power itself.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Can you really change the system by just working within it,
and there's a lot in you. You've got to have
more than just him, and then he's got whole thats
got to change the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
But while they were hesitant to work with the authorities,
they've seen the impact that being persistent can have on
creating change within the system, for example. And that's sup
pole of the Conviction Integrity Unit to presopp it was
an initiative to empower the community to challenge law and force.
It later became the Community Integrity Unit and now gives
(24:04):
the community even more powers to scrutinize and challenge law
enforcement in Wine Dot County, a sign that's sometimes working
together can be the most effective way to change things.
Speaker 6 (24:15):
Unless the community rallied around Mark depri for an initiative,
he doesn't have much he can do without the backing
of community. That's how we got the Conviction Integrity Unit.
He would not have been able to do that had
we not supported that. If there was no grassroots organization
in Wine Dot County, this would not be happening. And
(24:37):
so every community does need to establish some sort of
grassroots organization that holds these government institutions accountable. What will
always work is fellowship and engagement, and as long as
we are continuing to build together and collectively sharing our
(24:57):
stories and collectively doing work, we outnumber them. And I
think being able to have avenues where the community can
actually see what's really going on behind the curtain would
go a long way to make sure that there are
accountability measures in place, but also build trust.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Wyan Dot County and Kansas City, Kansas still have a
long way to go, but the Gallupski story made people
realize that nobody is above the law and a lot
of progress can be made when a community comes together
to hold power to account. Since the story came to light,
(25:38):
Nicking Kadija have seen more people coming together, putting a
spotlight on potential wrongdoing and calling it out. While they
don't always see eye to eye and have different opinions
on how to enact change, officials like Math and activists
like Nicking Kadija are doing the crucial work it takes
improve their community and protect its people's rights.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
I believe in some ways we were moving in the
right direction. We just have so much that we have
to make up for the road.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Justice can be long and arduous, often littered with more
stepbacks than tangible signs of progress. Pushing back against old
systems isn't comfortable, and change can take years, decades even,
But when you love your city and are that deeply
invested in its future, it's a journey worth fighting for.
(26:35):
In the next episode of The girl Friends Untouchable, Kadida
will be having a really thought provoking conversation with doctor
Marvel Parker, whose husband Wheeler Parker, was a witness to
his cousin Emmett Till's kidnapping at the hands of a
lynch mob.
Speaker 7 (26:50):
The open caskin funeral of Immitil is said to have
been the catalyst that sparked the civil rights movement. Rosa
park said, when she refused to give her seat up
on the bus, she thought about Immittiel and she stayed
in her seat. And we know that one act was
the birth of the Montgomery bus boycott that brought that
to Kina Town, that gave birth to the civil rights movement.
(27:13):
Emmit's death was the spark.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
The Girlfriend's Untouchable is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts.
For more from Novel, visit novel dot Audio. This episode
was hosted by me Referro Mazarura. It was produced by
Mohammed Ahmed and Refarro Mazarura. The editor is Joe Wheeler.
The researcher is Sayana Yusef. Production management from Charie Houston
(27:50):
and Joe Savage. The fact checker is Fendo Fulton. Sound design,
mixing and scoring by Daniel Kempson with additional engineering by
Nicholas Alas Alexander. Music supervision by Refara Mazarura, Nicholas Alexander
and Joe Wheeler. Original music by Amanda Jones. The series
artwork was designed by Christina Limcol. Novel Director of Development
(28:15):
is Selena Metta. Willard Foxton is Novel's creative director of Development.
Max O'Brien and Craig Strachan are executive producers for Novel.
Katrina Novel and Nikki Etel are the executive producers for
iHeart Podcasts. The marketing lead is Alison Cantel. Special thanks
to will Pearson and a special thanks to Carli Frankel
(28:35):
and the whole team at wm E
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