CAPTION: Kyler Sweely, a Republican seeking a Kansas House seat in Hutchinson, appears during a June 21, 2024, hearing in Topeka, after Republicans objected to his candidacy. Videos surfaced online last week that show Sweely jumping on a motionless woman in bed, but the woman told police there was no crime. CREDIT SHERMAN SMITH/KANSAS REFLECTOR
By Sherman Smith and Allison Kite
TOPEKA — Videos surfaced online last week showing a legislative candidate jumping on a motionless woman in bed and holding a pillow over her head.
Wichita police investigated the videos before they appeared online, and the woman told police she didn’t consider herself to be a victim.
The candidate, Republican Kyler Sweely, is challenging incumbent Democratic Rep. Jason Probst in a Hutchinson district. Sweely has faced criticism from Probst as well as fellow Republicans over whether he lives outside the district.
A Wichita police incident report, which Kansas Reflector obtained through an open records request, shows the videos were taken last year in a Wichita apartment where Sweely lived. The report lists a Newton residence as Sweely’s current address.
The report also shows an officer on Oct. 21 talked to Rep. Avery Anderson, a Republican and friend of Sweely’s who represents a Newton-area district. Police also talked to the woman who appears in the video and another woman who previously dated Anderson.
Anderson told police the videos “depict friends having fun.” The 24-year-old woman who appears in the videos told police she recalled “going out with Avery and Kyler and noted that they were friends who had been drinking and ‘just having fun’ in the videos.”
“She reiterated that no crime had taken place and that she did not consider herself a victim,” the report said.
In one of the clips, which is seven seconds long, the clothed woman is lying motionless on a bed in the background. An off-screen voice — identified in the police report as Anderson — yells, “Kyler, go!” Sweely turns away from the camera, toward the bed, and leaps on top of the woman.
A two-second video clip shows Sweely laughing as he appears to forcibly hold a pillow over the woman’s face while she lies in bed. She moves her arm to swat at him as the clip ends.
The two videos were stitched together and distributed on Oct. 24 across channels on the social media platform Reddit, fueling speculation and outrage about the incident. More than 500 users commented on the videos in a r/Kansas subreddit post before moderators removed it.
The woman in the videos didn’t answer questions for this story.
Sweely described the release of the videos as a “political smear” in a statement on his campaign’s Facebook page. In a statement for this story, Sweely said “we were just goofing around,” and that he was disappointed the woman’s “privacy has been violated for political gain.”
According to the police report, Anderson confirmed his voice can be heard off-camera in the video. Blake Shuart, an attorney for Anderson, disputed his client’s involvement and said police would amend the report. Police didn’t immediately respond to an email from Kansas Reflector asking if the report has been updated.
Anderson said in a statement that he is not involved in the video “in any way,” and that “completely random accusations are nothing more than a pathetic attempt to score political points in the days before an election.”
Probst, the westernmost Democrat in the Legislature, said he received the videos from “an unknown source” before they appeared online.
“I was very disturbed by what I saw,” Probst said. “I felt I had a duty to turn them over to law enforcement, and that’s exactly what I did.”
“I think the videos show a callous disregard for another person, and I think we should not accept the normalization of sexual abuse,” Probst added. “My opponent may laugh this off as a joke, but most normal people don’t think it’s funny.”
Probst also said the police report confirms Sweely doesn’t live in Hutchinson.
Police investigated the videos after receiving them in an email, the report shows, but the report doesn’t identify the sender of the email.
Sweely is a 26-year-old U.S. Army veteran who worked as a committee assistant this year for a committee chaired by Anderson. Sweely leased a home in Reno County on May 29, shortly before the June 3 candidate filing deadline. Reno County Republicans in June objected to Sweely’s candidacy, but a state board allowed him to remain on the ballot.
In his statement on Facebook, Sweely said the videos were “from a double date with friends” and accused his political rivals of trying to take them out of context. He told Kansas Reflector that Probst owes the woman in the video a public apology.
“When Democrats say ‘trust and believe women,’ they should stand by it consistently — not just when it’s politically convenient,” Sweely said.
Kansas Reflector received the videos on Oct. 14 but declined to publish a story before identifying the woman in the videos and attempting to talk to her.
Kansas Reflector filed an open records request with Wichita police on Oct. 24 for incident reports involving Sweely or Anderson. Such reports are public records, easily accessible and routinely turned over quickly.
Wichita police waited two days to respond with a cost estimate for fulfilling the request, which Kansas Reflector promptly paid. But later that day, police claimed they couldn’t turn the records over without proof of payment, even though the department had given Kansas Reflector a receipt.
On Monday, Wichita police spokesman Andrew Ford explained that the records wouldn’t be provided that day, as required by state statute, because “requests are processed in the order that payment is received.” He didn’t answer questions about the unnecessary delay.
The department provided the records on Tuesday, six days after the request was made.
Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and X.
Keith Richardson / November 1, 2024
Fascinating. Be sure to check out Chance Swaim’s great report “Wichita police won’t file charges against Kansas GOP House candidate in Reddit video” in today’s Wichita Eagle. It goes into more detail and raises a lot more questions. I hope Swaim keeps probing because there seems to be some serious prevaricating going on here.
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Paul Waggoner / November 1, 2024
This story substantiates Sweelys claims about this incident (as will anyone watching the “video”). It is very telling that the Probst campaign orchestrated this attempted smear and saved it to be their “October surprise”. I think voters see through this. If this is the worst piece of video that Probst and his political operative pals can find about Sweely then I think it is another nail in the political coffin of Jason Probst.
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Richard Hall / November 1, 2024
If Sgt Sweeny did in fact participate in the video’s then HE Should be truthful and admit it Sgt Sweeny really hides a lot of information about his past. and refuses to disclose information ask of his past. Impossible to vote for some that continues to h hide his past
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