Leawood Police Department 2025
Crime statistics for 2025
Leawood continued to see a decrease in crime overall as well as decreases in most crime areas, with only aggravated assault/batteries and general thefts increasing last year. The crime index of part 1 crimes (below) per 1,000 residents dropped 25%, from 16.27 to 12.26.
Leawood Crime Trends 2021-2025
More aggravated assault/battery and sexual assault cases drove our violent crime index up, to 0.68 per 1,000 residents from 0.56 a year ago, but the rate was still below our 5-year high in 2022.
Doggy Day Out with GPSPCA
Working with our partners at Great Plains SPCA, we hosted our monthly Doggie Day Out for the sixth year. Each month we host a dog up for adoption, like Anita (right). The day out gives the dog a chance to socialize, decompress from the shelter and maybe find someone to take them home. Four dogs have found homes with Leawood employees since our start.
Interacting with those we serve
The Leawood Police Department values each interaction we have with all of those who live, work or visit our city.
Last year we hosted or attended 120 community events, a 38% increase from a year ago. We established a full-time community education/social media officer, Officer Cody Morse (far left, above). We also started a new series of monthly lunches with residents at one of our retirement centers.
Use of Force and Complaints
While handling 28,485 incidents, our employees generated 11 complaints from those we serve.
Last year we logged 1,118 arrests, 3.92% of our contacts. A small percentage of our arrests generated a use of force, which we consider to be any time we physically contact a subject, feel threatened and point a firearm or physically strike a subject. No firearms were discharged in 2025 and of the 12 injuries reported during a use of force, none required anything more than a hospital examination.
Metro Chiefs & Sheriffs’ Award
Officers Josh Hayes, John McLaughlin and Cody Morse were recognized with Bronze Awards for Valor at the Metropolitan Chiefs and Sheriffs Association’s Awards for Valor ceremony Nov. 13, 2025. The three were honored for their role in rescuing a couple from their burning home last May.
Employee Awards in 2025
1 st Quarter
Officer of the Year
Aaron Gray serves in the department's Traffic Management Unit where he is particularly active in the fight against impaired driving. Aaron started with Leawood in 2019 and has since arrested nearly 90 impaired drivers to keep our streets safe. Aaron also serves as a Drug Recognition Expert to combat driving under the influence of drugs, teaches safe driving classes in the community, is a drone operator, and is a police training officer.
Civilian of the Year
Melissa Anderson is a records specialist but also helps in the property room where she ensures everything is in order when evidence is sent to the crime lab for testing. Melissa also started a community partnership program in which department staff eat lunch once a month with residents at a local senior living community. She does all of this with kindness to everyone with whom she interacts.
Employees of the Quarter
Harvey 2nd Quarter
Babalola 3rd Quarter
4th Quarter
Nine officers were recognized during the year with Lifesaving Awards after their efforts to rescue people or perform CPR.
Kayla
Timehin
Shane Chambers
Luigi Muscadin
Administrative Services
The Communications Unit in 2025 answered 35,910 phones calls, 9,087 of them 9-1-1 calls (down from 37,801 and 9,317), while coordinating the department’s 28,485 calls for service. Communications Officers answered 9-1-1 calls within 15 seconds 98.21% of the time, well above the national standard of 90%.
BY MONTH, 2022 - 2025
Dispatch went dark
For the first time in more than 11 years, when we moved into our current facility, the Leawood dispatch center went dark in January. Our dispatchers tested the ability to switch themselves and our phone lines to the Johnson County Emergency Communications Center in Olathe, our backup site. The 48-hour long test exercised our partnerships and tested our systems in case we had to switch dispatch centers in an emergency.
Administrative Services
Professional Standards, Property Unit, Records Unit and Technology
The Professional Standards Unit received 179 applications for police officer and 110 for communications officer; administered 31 written tests and conducted 21 oral boards for Police and Communications Officers in 2025. From these candidates the agency hired five new employees, including Officer Hunter Jamieson, left.
The Property Unit started their year with a full audit, insuring the 11,213 pieces of property were accounted for and secure. Throughout the year 1,258 pieces of property, including the gun used in a road rage incident (left) were recovered while 1,727 items were returned to their owner or disposed of – a total of nearly 3,000 items processed.
The Records Unit increased the number of reports reviewed by nearly 2% (5,485).
Our department added three new license plate reader (LPR) systems and, responding to interest from our public, developed a new police/community relationship to install LPRs at the entrances to residential areas. We also had a successful demo of a drone as first responder system.
Administrative Services
Animal Control Unit
Last year our Animal Control Officers captured and relocated 75 wild animals, including a young owl (left), a group of ducklings (center) and a fawn separated from its mother (right). The three officers also returned 51 strays and impounded 15; investigated 12 animal abuse and 9 dog bite reports; and conducted 31 Special Animal permit inspections.
Committed to inclusion
This year we announced a new initiative to better serve those with intellectual or developmental disabilities or another special consideration. The free program made two items available. The first, a decal to alert first responders someone at the home may have autism or another neurological variation. The second, a Blue Envelope, provides a place to collect a driver's important paperwork that would normally be asked for at a traffic stop or crash scene, as well as information to first responders on how it might be best to communicate with the individual with autism or another special concern. Both items help reduce confusion, stress, and ensure a respectful, supportive interaction.
Operations/ Patrol
With nearly half of our Patrol officers hired within the last three years and a new Patrol K9, there was a lot of energy to ferret out suspects last year.
Working with detectives, patrol officers in March initiated a sting operation on a suspect cloning and selling fake I-phones. The successful operation led to a search warrant and multiple felony charges on cases across eastern Kansas.
K9 Prima joined the agency in May after the retirement of K9 Kimo. In July, she notched her first felony tracks after leading her handler and other officers to the separate hiding locations of not one, but two fleeing burglary suspects.
In October, a citizen provided key details to dispatchers that allowed officers to stop and recover a pistol stolen in a Leawood auto burglary as well as credit cards and other property stolen in other auto burglaries by two suspects from Wichita.
Our work wasn’t just catching bad guys. Officers also spent time educating our citizens on safe riding of bikes and scooters. These two were already demonstrating good safety, so they earned a ‘cookie ticket’ as a reward.
Speeding was the most common citation with 3,158 written last year.
Support Services
Traffic Management
Speeds and inattention (the most common causes) led to a 7.7% increase in crash investigations by the Traffic Management Unit. Officers worked 880 Traffic Complaint Areas throughout the year in response to residents’ requests.
Officer Morgan VanHarn completed motor school in the spring, considered one of the most difficult trainings in law enforcement. She is Leawood’s first female motor officer. The increasing number of pedestrian and bicyclist crashes, including the tragic death of a 10-year-old scooter rider, had the traffic unit working with other officers to educate riders with the Ride Safe, Leawood campaign.
Support Services
Investigations
The Investigations Unit had a busy year with cases turnover as two new members joined the unit. the highlights during the year were:
• Coordinated the arrest of two suspects in a series of auto burglaries throughout the metro, clearing six Leawood cases.
• Det. Teerink, at left, handled 36 Leawood crypto cases and assisted other agencies on 19 more, recovering nearly $15,000 in stolen funds.
• Worked with federal agents on several high-profile burglaries involving transnational criminals.
• Testified and obtained a conviction in the Hereford House food contamination case from 2024.
Community Education
The unit grew to four members as they coordinated 128 events throughout the area. They also:
• taught DARE to 245 students
• presented 33 other safety and law classes,
• led 15 Scout tours/events
• held 8 bike rodeos
• 5 self defense classes
• and led 37 citizens through two citizens police academies
