Outside KCPD’s East Patrol station, protesters call for end to police system
Protesters outside the Kansas City Police Department’s East Patrol Station Tuesday evening called for the end of the current police system, following the Sunday police shooting of a Black man in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
At least 60 people listened to speakers from organizations including The Miller Dream LLC, Black Rainbow, White Rose KC and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Kansas City. It was a night about education and training, attorney Stacy Shaw said.
“Today, we’re in the heart of the city,” Shaw said. “And the heart of the real fight for Black liberation.”
Protesters chanted, “Justice for Jacob Blake,” in support of the Kenosha man whose attorney said he was paralyzed after police shot him multiple times. They also called for justice for Donnie Sanders, who was shot and killed by Kansas City police in March.
Ray Billis, an organizer with Black Rainbow, criticized Mayor Quinton Lucas for the donations he has received from the Fraternal Order of Police. Council members have faced similar criticism. On Sunday, Councilwoman Melissa Robinson, 3rd District, said she would donate the equivalent of the money she received from the police union to a local civil rights organization.
Billis also called for the end of the current police system.
“As long as there is the system of policing, there will be police brutality,” Billis said. “There is no amount of police training that can undo an entire lifetime of socialization and indoctrination of white supremacy.”
Sheryl Ferguson, an organizer with It’s Time 4 Justice, told demonstrators that 2020 has been “a jacked up year,” but that the young people protesting have given her hope.
“The youth that I have seen this summer has given me a renewed hope,” Ferguson said. “You have let me know that we do have a potential. We do have a progress, and we will have our freedom.”
Earlier on Tuesday, Ferguson protested a lack of transparency and accountability outside Kansas City police headquarters during a Board of Police Commissioners meeting.
The Rev. Vernon Howard, president of the Kansas City chapter of the SCLC, led protesters in saying they will not be silenced, muted or shut up.
“I will exercise my right to protest for rights,” Howard said. He added that: “We will never, ever shut up in the face of police brutality.”
Howard said the civil rights movement began in 1619, when the first Black man arrived in the country.
“You are the civil rights movement,” Howard said three times. “Together, we are the civil rights movement.”
This story was originally published August 26, 2020 at 1:03 AM.
