‘We fight so they can live’: City Hall rally marks 8th day of protests in Kansas City
For more than 10 minutes Friday, hundreds of protesters stood at the edge of the sidewalk opposite Kansas City Police Headquarters, alternating chants before finally someone crossed the police tape and lay face down.
Suddenly, Locust Street was lined with protesters lying side by side with their hands behind their backs shouting, “I can’t breathe,” some of the last words uttered by George Floyd in the hands of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes.
“I don’t see no riot here. Why are you in riot gear,” they shouted at the officers and members of the Missouri National Guard lined up in front of police headquarters. Protesters urged officials to “kneel with us” before filling the street and coming toe to toe with officers. More officers joined the line, but they didn’t pepper spray demonstrators or deploy tear gas. Nothing was thrown.
Floyd’s killing has sparked unrest across the globe. In Minneapolis, days of protests led to Chauvin facing murder charges. Since then, the three officers who stood by as Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck were also charged.
Friday marked the eighth day of demonstrations in Kansas City, and rather than marching near the Country Club Plaza as groups have done previously, protesters met downtown at City Hall, faced off at police headquarters, marched to the Jackson County Courthouse and circled downtown cheered on by cars that couldn’t get through.
“You are demanding change; you are being the change,” Councilwoman Melissa Robinson said. “And I encourage you never to give up your protest.”
Friday’s crowd, led by a coalition that has organized protests for days, won a decisive victory. Mayor Quinton Lucas signed onto a list of demands to reform the police department, including local control of the department.
“We are going to make sure that when we are done, these foundations have been shaken,” Lucas said. “We have changed the way it looks. living in Kansas City doesn’t mean we just go along just to get along. Living in Kansas City doesn’t mean that we are accepting the same stuff anymore. Living in Kansas City means that we can demand justice and living in Kansas City means that we have the power to make change.”
Lucas said he’s fighting for “the brother right now at 40th and Benton,” at 82nd and Troost Avenue, off of Blue Ridge.
“That’s who we’re fighting for,” Lucas said. “We fight so they can live. We fight so they can breathe. We fight so they can bird watch.”
Justice Horn, a former student body president at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, outlined the demands Lucas signed.
Kansas City is the only city in Missouri that doesn’t have local control of its police department. Instead, the department is controlled by a board appointed by the Missouri governor.
Horn said the group was also demanding Kansas City police put to use quickly the money the department received to equip its officers for the first time with body cameras.”
“If the cop’s on duty, the camera’s on duty,” has become a frequent chant at demonstrations in recent days. Protesters are urging police to enforce a policy requiring body cameras to be turned on at all times while an officer is on duty, otherwise they would be fired.
And the group asked for all charges against nonviolent protesters — about 230 have been arrested over the past week during demonstrations — to be dismissed.
“This is not the end of our demands. It’s the beginning. This is the beginning of a movement. Hear me loud and clear everyone – if they give us an inch, we take a mile,” Horn said.
Henry Service, a fellow organizer of the demonstrations, said the group would keep pushing “because this is what we deserve.”
“This is not something that we humbly ask for,” Service said. “These are things that we’ve demanded and that we’ve demanded from the beginning — and that we’re going to get.”
Protesters also demanded KCPD implement a “de-escalation procedure.” Civil rights groups want the police department to ban the use of tear gas, knee holds and choke holds by officers.
Tensions between police and protesters have been diminishing for days as officers have taken a more hands-off approach to protesters. During the first days of demonstrations last weekend, police deployed tear gas and pepper spray.
Police announced mid-afternoon Thursday that for the first time in several days all streets were back open through the Plaza. And as a couple hundred nonviolent protesters marched on the streets of the Plaza and Westport on Thursday night, officers stayed in their vehicles.
That was a change from previous nights, where officers lined up in front of protesters, wearing riot gear and demanding that everyone stay off the streets. No tear gas or pepper spray was deployed on Thursday night. Officers drove in front of the crowd as protesters marched up Main Street.
U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, D-Kansas, spoke Friday at City Hall and called demonstrations across the country a “justifiable reaction to the failure of our country to reckon with our history.”
Black leaders spoke at Friday’s rally of their own fears of police and experiences with racism.
“I cringe, and I get scared every time I see those lights,” said state Rep. Barbara Anne Washington, D-Kansas City. “I should not be scared.”
Washington, an attorney, said she would offer free representation to those who have been arrested while protesting in Kansas City.
Robinson urged the crowd to “connect the dots” of systemic racism, noting that black residents in Kansas City — and her council district — face high rates of eviction and unemployment. She said complaints about police originate in her district and that black children often struggle compared to their white counterparts in school.
“We can’t breathe,” she said.
Lucas said when he sees something like Floyd’s killing, he usually doesn’t “even want to talk.”
“Because that pain that so many of our black speakers have talked about is something that every black person in this audience knows,” Lucas said. “You know that when you see a brother who is kneeled on and killed based on a forgery charge, you know that when you see a brother who is stopped and trying to get his license but ends up shot dead — you know that that could be you.”
Lucas also said: “I was seven years old when Rodney King was beaten,” Lucas said, “and I remember asking my mom ... ‘How does this happen that they get acquitted. What I didn’t know the bigger surprise would be is that 28 years later — 28 years later — we’d be shaking our heads for the same thing.”
Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker told the crowd she supported protesters, who she added had a right to gather. She drew the ire of the police union when she told the audience to “look at union contracts that provide additional protections to law enforcement.”
KCPD’s labor agreement with the Fraternal Order of Police, in essence, allows officers involved in fatal shootings to go home for several days before they are interviewed by investigators. In a statement, the FOP criticized Peters Baker’s comments.
”There have been countless studies conducted by independent medical professionals over the last several decades that have universally found that an officer needs two or more sleep cycles to allow them to recover from the physiological impact of being involved in a critical incident where their life was in danger,” the statement said. “In almost every case, the officer, after that required rest, provides a detailed voluntary statement regarding the incident to the investigating agency.”
After more than three hours Friday, protesters gathered once again at City Hall for a moment of silence. A hush fell over protesters for nearly nine minutes — the time Floyd spent with Chauvin’s knee pressed into his neck.
Before the crowd dispersed, they chanted the names of those who have been abused or killed by police in Kansas City, including Breona Hill, who was thrown to the ground in a forcible arrest for which two officers were later indicted. She was killed in a homicide, not by an officer, months later.
“Say his name. Ryan Stokes,” the group chanted over and over.
“Say his name. Donnie Sanders.”
“Say his name Cameron Lamb.”
This story was originally published June 5, 2020 at 5:11 PM.
