Kent community meeting to discuss police hiring practices

Published 2:53 pm Friday, August 8, 2025

The Kent Black Action Commission (KBAC) will host a community meeting with Mayor Dana Ralph and Police Chief Rafael Padilla to discuss public safety and the hiring practices of potential officers.

The meeting is from 5 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 12 in the Green River Room at Kent Commons, 525 Fourth Ave. N.

Gwen Allen-Carston, KBAC executive director, organized the meeting in response to the Kent Police Department’s hiring last September of Conner Thompson, a former officer with the Olathe (Kansas) Police Department where he fatally shot a man in 2022 inside the man’s home.

The city of Olathe just last month paid a $625,000 to the family of the man to settle a wrongful death civil lawsuit filed against Thompson and the city.

Padilla said in previous Kent Reporter stories about the hiring that he knew about the shooting and agreed with the Olathe Police Department and a Johnson County district attorney that determined the shooting by Thompson as justified.

Allen-Carston said Ralph and Padilla told her they will only be able to stay for the first 40 minutes of the meeting due to a previously scheduled community meeting. But Padilla said they have pushed back the start of that meeting in order to make attending the KBAC meeting a priority.