The police chief of Overland Park, Kan., suddenly resigned Tuesday after the mother of John Albers, the 17-year-old shot dead by an officer in 2018, sent an email to leaders in the Kansas City suburb saying the chief had disparaged her parenting and didn’t refute her claims that he had lied about the status of the officer’s employment in a televised interview.
Overland Park officials did not detail why Frank Donchez resigned, but they publicly released the email Sheila Albers sent to the mayor and city manager describing her encounter with the chief after the media inquired about the reason for his departure. Donchez, 63, who had been the chief of the department since 2014 and weathered controversy following the fatal shooting of Albers, defended his comments Wednesday night and said he resigned for personal reasons.
Donchez was chief in January 2018 when Albers, after threatening to kill himself on social media, drove the family minivan out of his garage and was repeatedly shot by Officer Clayton Jenison. Jenison fired 13 times, nearly all of which were when he was not in the path of the van, according to experts and one federal judge who watched two different dashboard-camera videos of the incident.
Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe ruled the shooting was justifiable a month later. And Donchez found that the killing, including shooting into a moving vehicle at someone who may not have seen the officer, did not violate Overland Park policies. In March 2018, Overland Park paid Jenison a $70,000 payout, which wasn’t publicly disclosed until Albers’s mother discovered it in 2020, and Donchez certified to the state police licensing board that Jenison had left the force voluntarily.
Albers said Donchez approached her before the Monday meeting and told her he wanted to work with her on the female officer initiative. Albers said she told Donchez she couldn’t work with him because he was a liar, raising comments the chief made in a televised interview about her son’s killing. She said he claimed in the interview that Jenison had left the department “a week or two” after the shooting and that Jenison had not been encouraged to leave. Jenison actually stayed on the force for another six weeks after the shooting, according to his personnel records that were made public.
“His response was asking me if I have ever lied before,” Albers said of Donchez’s reply in an email she sent to Overland Park City Manager Lori Luther and Mayor Curt Skoog after the council meeting. Albers said she replied to Donchez that she had not lied in a professional setting, according to the email.
“I am sure you and Steve tell everyone you were the best parents,” Albers said Donchez responded, referring to John Albers’s father and Sheila’s husband. “And you left him at his time of need,” she said the police chief told her, referring to John Albers’s suicidal thoughts before his slaying.
Former Police Chief Frank Donchez: What an unwiped asshole.