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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas City Police Department has suspended one of its officers with pay as it investigates how Republican U.S. Senate candidate Eric Greitens was able to film a campaign video at North Patrol.

The video was filmed while Greitens did a ride-along there last Friday. North Patrol commander Maj. Joel Lovelady approved the ride-along.

“That’s something they need to talk to him about, too,” former Jackson County prosecutor Phil LeVota told FOX4 Wednesday when it comes to what role Lovelady played in Greitens’ stop at North Patrol.

“Was the commander just saying, ‘Hey, we’d love to get public officials involved and seeing what we do on the streets because that helps us with funding. That helps us with all sorts of stuff.’ It’s a good decision for the commander to get officials on the streets with officers. That’s fantastic.”

LeVota said the question investigators need to ask Lovelady is how much he knew going into Greitens’ visit at the patrol building.

“Did he approve it as a campaign thing, which I’m assuming he didn’t, but that’s also a question that that commander needs to answer,” LeVota said. “He may have been blindsided by this, but that needs to be investigated.”

The police department is investigating whether an officer broke the law in Missouri that involves political activity within the police department.

“Officers are free to express and be involved in any political activity on their off duty and not use department property. But they cannot support or oppose campaign issues while on duty or in uniform or using department property,” LeVota said.

“It even prohibits officers from putting bumper stickers on department property, and this is all for a good reason, so the community doesn’t have any perception that the public police department supports a certain candidate.” 

Public information officers with KCPD will not confirm whether any other officers were involved in Greitens’ stop at North Patrol because this is a criminal investigation.

Greitens’ stop at North Patrol has been scrubbed from his social media accounts because the Board of Police Commissioners, which governs the police department, asked them to take it down.