By Michael Bushnell
Northeast News
May 6, 2015

KANSAS CITY, Missouri — The friendly, coaching voice often heard on the other end of a phone call placed to Kansas City’s East Patrol Division will soon be a thing of the past.

Northeast native Sgt. Rick Sticken, East Patrol’s day shift desk sergeant, will be taking the department’s buy-out offer and retire this month after over 26 years with the department. The buy-out offers are in response to the department’s budget being cut by over $8 million for the 2015-2016 budget. Those police employees that met or exceeded retirement eligibility were offered a special retirement incentive.

Born and raised in Historic Northeast, Sticken still has a warm spot for the community.

“We grew up in the cul de sac at the east end of Cliff Drive,” Sticken said. “I went to James and Gladstone Elementary then Northeast Junior and Senior High and graduated in 1976.”

One could say his law enforcement career started when he donned the orange safety suit of a school crossing guard at Gladstone Elementary.

“Even then I had a strong sense of community,” Sticken mused.

After graduating from Northeast [High School] and a stint in the Marine Corps, law enforcement came calling. He’s made his rounds in the department as well, serving with the Traffic Unit for a time, then as a Field Training Officer [FTO] for both North and East Patrol. In 1997, he received the Missouri Police Officer of the Year award for pulling a woman from a burning car near I-435 and Truman Road. Sticken threw himself on her seconds before the car exploded.

Since 2005, however, Sgt. Rick Sticken has been at East Patrol serving as the desk sergeant. Sticken wants citizens to know if they don’t feel they got a fair shake with an officer, there are paths to a resolution within the department that allow for their case to be heard.

“Go up the chain of command,” Sticken said. “Cooperate with the officers but always know there’s someone in charge that can handle the problem.”

Sticken won’t be entirely out of police work after formally retiring. As a reserve officer, he’ll still staff the East Patrol desk one night a week and work as a reserve officers for the downtown parking authority.

“My wife says this will be the weaning process off police work,” Sticken joked.