‘Power to the people’: Hundreds protest police killings for third day in Kansas City
For the third day, hundreds of people descended Sunday on Kansas City’s Country Club Plaza to protest police brutality — one of dozens of rallies across the U.S. sparked by the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Demonstrators gathered at J.C. Nichols Memorial Fountain hours after the city announced an 8 p.m. curfew for the Plaza, Westport and downtown business districts. Officials pointed to fires, injuries and 85 arrests that stemmed from Saturday’s protest.
“Power to the people,” the crowd shouted in unison about 2 p.m. Sunday.
Among those in the crowd was Terri Rose, 33, of Olathe, who held a sign that read “Black Lives Matter.” She brought her four children, ages 4 to 11, to teach them that “if they want to see change, they have to be a part of it.”
Henry C. Service, an organizer with the protest group Enough is Enough, said the crowd planned to start with speeches and then have “a good old-fashioned protest.” The crowd repeated after him: “Police don’t scare me. They should be afraid of me.”
Capt. David Jackson, a Kansas City Police Department spokesman, said police welcomed residents to express their First Amendment rights. But he said officers would have to act, as they did Saturday, if people broke business windows or threw rocks at officers.
“That’s no longer a demonstration,” he said early Sunday afternoon. “We’re getting into an unlawful assembly there.”
Later in the afternoon, police said officers discovered “stashes of bricks and rocks” in and around the Plaza and Westport that they believed were meant to be used during a riot.
Narene Stokes — whose 24-year-old son, Ryan Stokes, was unarmed when he was fatally shot in 2013 by Kansas City police near the Power & Light District — asked for the Plaza crowd to “keep fighting this battle.” Stokes was shot twice in the back. In February, a judge removed the officer, William Thompson, from a wrongful death lawsuit, saying Thompson believed Stokes was armed.
“How’s it justifiable that you shot a man in the back?” Narene Stokes asked Sunday. “No way, no how.”
U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II of Missouri’s 5th congressional district also spoke at the park, calling the midday protest “righteous.”
“This is about as beautiful a representation of the great rainbow of humanity that I have ever seen,” Cleaver said. “Black and white and brown, sitting on the ground. This is America.”
As protesters marched, Michael Wheeler — known as KC Superman for jogging around the metro and at sporting events dressed in a superhero outfit to spread a message of unity — ran past the crowd. He came out retirement last year.
“There’s too much work left to do,” he said.
Across the state line, faith and community leaders held a rally Sunday to expose what organizers called “deep-seated abuse and corruption” in the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas.
Damage, fires Saturday
Speaking to reporters outside City Hall, Mayor Quinton Lucas said while the damage seen Saturday in Kansas City was not as bad as in other cities, it was “more than we’d want to tolerate in this region.” Police officers and protesters were injured, he said.
“None of that needs to happen,” he said.
Police Chief Rick Smith begged Sunday for protesters to not destroy local businesses. The night before, several businesses were damaged as police said people were trying to break into them. A squad car was set on fire near West 46th Terrace and Wornall Road.
“Stop destroying our community,” Smith said. “Stop destroying our reputation as a city.”
Protesters and police officers were injured in Saturday’s events. Two officers were hospitalized after being struck by objects. One suffered an injury to the temple and the other had a lacerated liver, police said.
During a police briefing Sunday morning, Smith asked if any police officers in the room did not get hit by an object at the protest. None raised their hands, he said.
“Everyone had been assaulted in some way last night,” Smith said. “Kansas City is better than this.”
The Saturday protest drew about 1,000 people, marking another in a series of protests across the U.S. in the days after the death of George Floyd. He died May 25 after Derek Chauvin, a now-fired Minneapolis police officer, applied his knee to Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes while he lay prone, pleading to breathe while in handcuffs. Chauvin has been charged with third-degree murder.
Signs carried over the weekend by demonstrators included ones that called for accountability in local police shootings, including in the case of 26-year-old Cameron Lamb, who was fatally shot by a Kansas City police detective in December.
Another read: “Who killed Donnie Sanders?” Sanders, 47, was unarmed when he was fatally shot by an officer in March.
By the end of Saturday night, police reported 10 people injured. Protesters threw water bottles at officers, with Jackson, the Kansas City police spokesman, estimating more than 100 rocks and bottles were thrown.
Police used tear gas to try to disperse the crowds, with limited success. Some in the crowd called the tear gas excessive force. At least one protester complained that police used flash bangs and rubber bullets at a point when the crowd was calm.
Sgt. Jake Becchina, another police spokesman, said flash bangs were used, but he could not confirm the use of rubber bullets.
Tanner Leon, 22, said Saturday he was hit twice by tear gas canisters fired by officers, calling the police’s response to the protesters not warranted. He saw children hit with tear gas, he said.
“That’s not humane,” Leon said, looking at a line of officers and gas surrounding citizens in the street. ”It’s terrifying when all you hear are explosions and screaming and people running.”
Gov. Mike Parson declared a state of emergency, making available the Missouri National Guard and the Missouri Highway Patrol to support local authorities. They arrived in Kansas City by Sunday morning.
Missouri was among 11 states to activate soldiers amid the protests, The New York Times reported. Police had arrested nearly 1,700 people in 22 cities since Thursday, nearly a third of which were in Los Angeles, according to a tally by The Associated Press.
Acknowledging the conflicts, Kansas City police said positive things, such as protesters offering officers cold water, also came from the demonstrations. Some videos circulated on social media Saturday showed officers fist bumping protesters.
Before Sunday’s protest began, Mayor Lucas spoke to a 22-year-old African-American man from northeast Kansas City. He asked the mayor about the protest: “Well, what are we supposed to do?”
Lucas, a member of the Board of Police Commissioners, urged civil conversation about reform. He said Saturday he knew there was a lot of pain in Kansas City and across the country — a pain he, a black man who grew up on the city’s predominantly black East Side, knows well. He again gave out his cellphone number Sunday (816-679-1662) and called on angered citizens to text or call him.
“Let’s make some sort of difference,” Lucas said. “A difference isn’t making a property owner, including a black property owner, have to clean up the next day.”
The Star’s Tammy Ljungblad and Bob Cronkleton contributed to this report.
This story was originally published May 31, 2020 at 5:08 PM.
