FORMER INDEPENDENCE POLICE OFFICER PLEADS GUILTY IN THEFT CASE

A former Independence police officer pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiring
with his brother to steal $10,000 from two federal undercover agents who
were posing as drug dealers.

Brian C. McGarr was initially charged last month after he and his brother,
Scott A. McGarr, were snagged in a sting operation by local police and the FBI.

Scott McGarr, is scheduled to plead guilty to a similar charge today. He
also once worked as a police officer in Kansas City and Independence.

"It's a sad commentary when people bring this on the agency," said
Independence Police Chief Fred Mills. "But the true test of an agency's
integrity is in how it responds to these kinds of things."

Brian McGarr was fired from the Independence department just after his
arrest in March, Mills said. He could face up to 20 years in prison for his
conviction, though an estimate in his plea agreement suggests that his
sentence could be closer to five years.

According to court records:

Kansas City officers videotaped Brian McGarr in February as he used a rock
to smash a car window and steal $6,700 in "drug money" that federal agents
had planted for him to steal. The initial complaint also accused Brian
McGarr in the $6,700 theft, but as a result of a plea bargain, a formal
charge was never filed in that incident.

In March, an informant working with the FBI told Brian McGarr that two drug
couriers would be waiting to meet a contact in an Independence parking lot.
Officers soon saw Brian McGarr pull up behind the two undercover FBI
agents. McGarr approached them but decided not to rob them after another
Independence police officer pulled up.

Leaving the agents in the parking lot, Brian McGarr then phoned his brother
to give him the opportunity to rob them. As the agents attempted to leave,
a man drove into the parking lot and searched for the car. Officers
identified the man as Scott McGarr when he stopped to use a pay telephone.
The undercover agents were pulled from the scene because officers feared
for their safety.

Before joining the Independence department in 1996, Brian McGarr served for
a year as an officer at Kansas City International Airport. He worked as a
hospital security officer before that, Independence police said.