Editor's Note: This and all other Bourbon County Monitor articles are free until Thursday, Aug. 20, when most will require a paid subscription of $7.50 per month. Click here to subscribe.
FORT SCOTT – "It was just a kid with a diaper on," Fort Scott City Commissioner Tracy Dancer recalled of an infant he and his wife once picked up from police custody in the middle of the night. The memory has stayed with him, and Tuesday he joined his fellow commissioners in unanimously approving a plan to give Fort Scott’s youngest crime victims something the city has never had: a real home.
"I think that could be a very big impact on our community and for us as the police department," Fort Scott Police Lt. Jason Eastwood told commissioners at the Aug. 4 meeting, unveiling his proposal to convert the historic Gunn Park house into a dedicated child intake center. Commissioners approved the idea without a single dissenting vote.
"A majority of that time has been in investigations," said Eastwood, regarding his 16-year tenure with the Fort Scott Police Department. He said officers have used the Gunn Park house for training exercises for years and have long suspected its quiet, homelike layout could serve a far more important purpose.
"One of the hardest and unfortunately more common type of investigation to work is a crime that involves a child victim," Eastwood said, explaining why the department needs a dedicated space for its youngest witnesses. Such cases require a specialized, trauma-informed technique known as a forensic interview, designed to gather a child’s account without coercion or leading questions.
"It’s often called Finding Words, Child-First protocol," Eastwood said of the method, which the department once carried out in a pair of back-to-back rooms at the former Mercy Physician Clinic. That building now belongs to the school district and is being converted into a preschool, he said, making it unsuitable for such sensitive work going forward.
"We’ll travel to Pittsburg, we’ll travel to Iola," Eastwood said, describing how Bourbon County has no local child advocacy center, forcing investigators, victims and families to leave the county for every forensic interview. Over the past 18 months, he said, the Pittsburg center handled 19 interviews for Fort Scott police and 31 countywide, while Iola’s Hope Unlimited handled another 12.
"Those are non-criminal events," Eastwood said of a second set of statistics - 27 "child in need of care" cases, 14 runaways and two child abuse cases logged by the department over the same 18 months - noting that only the child abuse cases involve an actual crime. Roughly nine out of every 10 of those calls, he said, come in around 2 or 3 a.m., when parents are arrested and children suddenly need a safe place to go.
"The police department is not equipped for it. Never has been," Eastwood said flatly, describing how officers currently improvise with no dedicated space or supplies for a frightened child. He pointed to one especially difficult case in the past 18 months involving an infant abuse victim, saying simply, "we don’t have the room, we don’t have the supplies."
"We try to keep those in storage as much as we can," Eastwood said of the diapers, formula and toiletries the department often receives as donations for children entering foster care. A dedicated house, he said, would finally give police a permanent, organized place to store those supplies rather than scattering them around a cramped station.
"It’s peacefully right there at Gunn Park," Eastwood said of the proposed site, noting that a family walking a child through an interview is just steps from a playground. "It just makes it a good environment for them," he added.
"I’m not requesting, and the police department is not requesting any kind of funds at the moment," Eastwood told commissioners, stressing that the vote was only to authorize the department to pursue outside funding. He said Hope Unlimited has already offered its support and may even consider opening a satellite location in Fort Scott.
"Is this something that would qualify for your seizure funds and stuff like that?" Commissioner Tim Van Hoecke asked, wondering aloud whether asset forfeiture money could help cover renovations. Eastwood said that remains a real possibility, though no firm funding plan exists yet.
"It’s got power, it’s got water, it’s got the utility services that it needs," Eastwood said of the house’s current condition, adding that the structure itself "looks in good shape really" despite years of disuse. He said the building would keep its ordinary, residential exterior, so children would have no way of knowing it is connected to law enforcement.
"It would look just like a house," Van Hoecke said, confirming with Eastwood that the goal is to leave the outside untouched for the sake of the children who will walk through its doors. Eastwood agreed, saying preserving that ordinary look is intentional.
"There is pretty extensive work to be done inside," said Commissioner Julie Buchta, who toured the house in person a few months earlier and pointed to a failing ceiling along with aging plumbing and electrical systems. Despite the needed repairs, she said, "I love this idea."
"This would be a profound improvement in giving you a place where you can address things like that," Dancer told Eastwood, reflecting on the department’s current lack of resources for emergencies like the one he described. He said he and his wife have also cared for children who needed interviews at the Child Advocacy Center in Pittsburg, calling the trip a haul for the officers who have to make it.
"Having that as a resource in our community would be a boon," Dancer said, adding that its benefits would reach well beyond Fort Scott. "Not just to this community, but the outlying areas that also need a place like that," he said, and no objection followed before commissioners moved to a vote.
The measure passed unanimously, formally authorizing Fort Scott police to pursue outside funding to turn the Gunn Park house into a home for the city’s most vulnerable children.
