At least one other Kansas City media outlet is reporting on what is essentially a revolving door at the Wyandotte County Jail, after previous reports from The Heartlander.

“Months of records reveal criminal suspects arrested for felonies are being released in Wyandotte County after two days because they’re not being formally charged right away,” reports television station KMBC.

“The law requires formal charges within 48 hours after an arrest or suspects must be released from jail.”

“KMBC 9 Investigates found suspects charged with aggravated assault, domestic battery, felony drug possession, and other felony charges were released into the community before appearing in front of a judge.”

Theoretically the released suspects can be charged later, though a knowledgeable source tells The Heartlander in Wyandotte County charges are filed after the fact “so rarely that it’s hardly noteworthy.”

The station noted the case of one man who, across 20 years, “has been behind bars multiple times. He now has a neck tattoo with the letters ‘FTP’ and police lights on top of them.” FTP is shorthand for “f— the police.”

The man’s offenses “include indecent solicitation [of] a child, child endangerment, and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon,” KMBC reports. “On October 12, Evans was arrested in Wyandotte County for felony opiate possession.

“It was less than three months after he was last released from prison.”

“Following that arrest, [he] was released from the Wyandotte County Jail without formal charges two days later.”

“At the very least,” Henry Service, a defense attorney in Kansas City, told the station, “we should have the high-level felonies prosecuted.”

Even when Wyandotte County District Attorney Mark Dupree’s Office does charge violent criminals, they often slip through its grasp. Another defense attorney told The Kansas City Star in 2020 that, “I started getting plea deals on cases that went from a happy surprise to making me feel like, ‘I can’t believe I’m getting these deals.’ I was talking to attorneys who were getting the same deals. …

“What’s going on is crime is not being prosecuted in this county.”

A third defense attorney told The Star, “You come to a realization this is not good for the community as a whole. You start realizing something’s wrong.”

A former prosecutor in the Wyandotte County DA’s office told The Star at the time that assistant prosecutors there “want to try a case and they’re told, ‘no, just plead it.’”

Meanwhile, The Star reported in 2020, “Overland Park resident Kent Ewonus’ 22-year-old daughter Kelsey Ewonus was murdered in Kansas City, Kansas, in 2015. Dupree’s office tried suspect Antoine Fielder twice in 2017 and failed to gain a conviction, ultimately just giving up after two mistrials and releasing Fielder. He allegedly went on to carjack one woman, kill another woman in Kansas City and fatally shoot Wyandotte County deputies Theresa King and Patrick Rohrer.”

A cornered Fielder ultimately pleaded guilty a year ago to two counts of capital murder and one count of aggravated robbery. He is serving life without parole.

In August, another law enforcement officer – Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department Officer Hunter Simoncic – was killed, allegedly by a suspect who’d been allowed by Dupree’s office to be on the streets:

Dennis Mitchell III, a driver who allegedly drove toward Simoncic during a police pursuit, had earlier been in an Iowa jail awaiting extradition to Kansas City in a drug case, but Dupree’s office chose not to go get him.