Family of Donnie Sanders still seeking answers after decision not to charge officer
Family of Donnie Sanders, an unarmed Black man fatally shot by a Kansas City police officer last March, gathered Tuesday to decry the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office’s decision not to file charges against the officer.
More than a dozen family and friends of Sanders stood down the block from where Sanders, 47, was shot. On Monday, Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said there was insufficient evidence to file charges against the unnamed officer.
The officer who shot Sanders told investigators that Sanders held up his hand as if he had a firearm, Baker said.
The day after Sanders’ death, the Kansas City Police Department announced Sanders was not carrying a weapon.
“That was not the outcome that we were expecting ... it was gut-wrenching,” said Donnie Sanders’s sister Reshonda Sanders. “We are all still out here today, we truly want justice for Donnie Sanders.”
“Justice,” other family and community members echoed around her.
It’s approaching one year since the Sanders family began to mourn him. They still don’t have a headstone nor a plot of land to honor him because of the pandemic. His ashes remain in a box.
Sanders was among the oldest of six siblings growing up in Kansas City near 30th and Olive streets, about 20 blocks north of where he was later shot. He had two daughters of his own, one a teenager and the other a young adult.
His sister Youlanda Sanders told The Star last summer that he was “a hilarious character” who liked to built and fix things with his hands, played music loud and was always offering to take family members’ cars to get washed.
“Donnie’s a people person, period, but he really loved the kids,” she said at the time. He would get on the ground and play with the youngest family members, tickling them and dancing with them.
On March 12, 2020, Sanders was driving from his girlfriend’s house near Linwood Boulevard and Chestnut Avenue to his sister’s house on 57th Street and Indiana Avenue when he encountered police on Wabash Avenue, near Prospect Avenue, family has said.
The prosecutor’s office on Monday released dash cam footage leading up to and including the shooting. The officer can be seen making a U-turn after passing Sanders’ vehicle. According to court documents, the officer was concerned Sanders was speeding. The officer did not turn on his vehicle’s lights and sirens nor did he attempt to stop Sanders’s Chevy Tahoe.
The dash cam footage then shows that Sanders stopped in the right lane at a flashing red light at the intersection of 51st and Prospect. While stopped he briefly turned on his left turn indicator although he was not in the left turn lane. He then turned off his blinker and proceeded to turn right without signaling, according to court documents.
The officer continued to follow Sanders without turning on his lights and sirens or attempting to stop the vehicle. He followed Sanders up an alley parallel to Wabash between 51st and 52nd streets and then, according to communication logs, told dispatch he had identified a traffic violation at 51st and Wabash.
After entering the alley, the officer turned on his vehicle’s lights and sirens as both vehicles stopped. The officer is then heard on his radio informing dispatch and other officers that Sanders “is bailing on foot.” A pursuit ensued and the officer can be heard multiple times for Sanders to “stop,” and to “drop.”
The officer is then heard commanding Sanders to, “Show me your hands.” Sanders responds, but it is unclear what he says on the audio recording. After a short pause, the officer is heard yelling, “Dude, drop it.” He then yells “drop” four times before firing a series of shots in rapid succession.
Sanders family on Tuesday said when they watched the newly-released video they could hear the officer “loud and clear,” but they said they also heard Sanders saying “I don’t have nothin” in the background.
“We don’t understand at all why Donnie is no longer here,” Reshonda Sanders said. “He wasn’t doing anything wrong.”
Baker said her office took additional steps in the review to ensure all evidence was collected, analyzed and reported. They also tried to enhance the audio recordings from the night of the shooting.
Investigators repeatedly canvassed the scene of the shooting for more witnesses, as recently as last week, Baker said.
Baker’s letter noted that there were two civilian witnesses who told her office that they saw the shooting as it happened or the moments just before the shooting.
The two witnesses corroborated that portion of the officer’s account, one said that it appeared Sanders was pointing a gun at the officer and the other commented that Sanders had his arm extended and was moving toward the officer, Baker said.
“I sought outside reviews by two other district attorney offices that have highly developed use of force teams,” she said. “We shared the investigation with them and asked for their independent review.”
The investigation into the shooting was completed by the Kansas City Police Department in the fall of 2020; then the file was passed to the prosecutor’s office. Instead of beginning its review immediately, the prosecutor’s office handed the case over to Missouri Highway Patrol, considered an outside agency.
“As a matter of public policy, I believe that police agencies can no longer review incidents allegedly committed by its own officers. That was why we called the Highway Patrol,” Baker said in a statement Monday. “Every officer-involved incident must be investigated by outside, independent detectives.”
The Highway Patrol began investigating all shootings, both fatal and non-fatal, by members of the Kansas City Police Department on June 13, when an officer shot and killed William Slyter.
Rev. Vernon P. Howard Jr., president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Kansas City, called the decision Monday proof that “a Black man’s life has no value.”
“This is why we’re angry, why we’re in inconsolable grief, why we protest in the streets and why we peacefully shut down Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners’ meetings,” he said. “This department, this Board of Commissioners, this State and this city government has failed to protect us. Rather, this system kills us in ways it does to no other people in this community.”
Gwen Grant, president and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Kansas City, said Monday that the killing was senseless.
“This is a tragedy. A Black man driving down the street, seemingly minding his own business, ends up dead after an encounter with a police officer,” Grant said. “Watching the video, it is not clear why Donnie was stopped in the first place. A traffic violation does not justify capital punishment. Donnie Sanders was unarmed. He should not be dead.”
Last summer, Howard and Grant, along with a multiracial coalition, demanded a number of police reforms that included an independent panel to review police shootings and use of force incidents, as well as the implementation of body worn cameras. They also demanded Police Chief Rick Smith either resign or be terminated for his handling of police shootings.
Those demands were echoed throughout the summer as the names of Sanders, Ryan Stokes, Cameron Lamb and Terrance Bridges — all fatally shot by Kansas City police — were chanted during protests that lasted weeks.
Baker said she and the use of force committee did not come to the decision lightly, and offered her condolences to Sanders’s family and loved ones.
“Like others in our community, we mourn the loss of the victim,” Baker said. “These events exact a great toll on our community, a community searching for hope to heal and prevent the staggering high levels of violence in this city.
“We continue to search for new partners to address and suppress this violence and begin to heal the resulting trauma and harm for our community.”
The Kansas City Police Department said in a statement Monday that it mourns any loss of life in the community, especially when a police officer is involved in that loss.
“The Kansas City Missouri Police Department provided the prosecutor with all the facts known in the case, and we respect the judicial process and the outcome in which it resulted,” the department said.
Sanders’s family on Tuesday said they plan to continue to speak out about his killing until they see justice.
“Whose son’s next?” his sister Youlanda Sanders asked.
This story was originally published March 2, 2021 at 3:13 PM.
