Kansas City demonstrators announce temporary ‘cease-fire’ in City Hall occupation
Demonstrators who have camped outside City Hall in Kansas City for three weeks demanding police reform announced on Friday night a temporary end to their occupation
Black Rainbow, one of the groups that organized the occupation, announced on Instagram they’d declared a cease-fire after beginning talks with public officials about divesting funds from law enforcement.
The cease-fire, said Ryan Sorrel, a leader with Black Rainbow, is temporary. If it doesn’t go well, he said, demonstrators will be back on the streets.
The demonstration started in early October after video of a Kansas City Police Department officer placing his knee on a pregnant woman’s back during an arrest sparked outrage. The protesters vowed to stay on the city hall lawn until city leaders fired the officer in the video, fired Chief of Police Rick Smith, and vowed to divest 50% of KCPD’s budget.
The choice to temporarily halt the occupation, Sorrel said, was in response to progress made over the last three weeks, including the talks, and an effort to be strategic.
“We came into the occupation with three specific demands, but just like in the military you kind of have to shift your objective and your goals as the environment changes and as you get more information,” Sorrel said. “We saw this as a very strategic move in order to not absolve all of our resources.”
Demonstrators, Sorrel said, began talking with city council members a few days ago about specific spaces where public safety funds and responsibilities, such as health crises and parking tickets, could be moved away from the police department.
This is a step toward the protesters’ third demand of divesting funds away from the police department and in to social services, which Sorrel said is the most important.
“That’s really how we get to in a long term sense investing in the Black community and the brown community, he said.
In a statement Saturday morning, Mayor Quinton Lucas said he met with “groups seeking change” last week. He said he’s been meeting with such groups since May and planned to continue to do so in an effort to build trust.
“While we will have our disagreements, all of us in Kansas City must work together to see better days ahead,” he said.
This story was originally published October 23, 2020 at 11:09 PM.
