Kansas City police wanted charges filed against Cameron Lamb — weeks after his death
Weeks after a Kansas City detective fatally shot Cameron Lamb, police built a case where they sought to have Jackson County prosecutors charge the 26-year-old father with domestic violence.
Police investigators submitted to Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker a 31-page case file that contained multiple discs with evidence that detailed an altercation between Lamb and his girlfriend that occurred the morning of Dec. 3, 2019, hours before Det. Eric DeValkenaere fatally shot Lamb.
“Submitting a domestic violence case against Cameron Lamb was just laughable,” Baker told The Star in an interview Thursday. “I mean, he was dead. They submitted a file on a dead guy, and they actually spent time working up a domestic violence case.”
Baker said no charges were filed against Lamb, who was killed while backing his pickup truck into his garage at 4154 College Ave.
DeValkenaere, 43, was sentenced Friday afternoon to three years in prison for second-degree involuntary manslaughter and six years for armed criminal action. They will run at the same time. He will remain free on bond while he appeals his conviction.
The campaign to “dehumanize” Lamb was concerning, Baker said.
She described Lamb as a shade tree mechanic who worked on cars in his backyard to provide for his family.
“But he never gets any benefits credited to him as a human being. He only gets this casting of, ‘A bad player, a bad human, a guy that probably deserved to die. A guy who is not worthy to the rule of law,’” Baker said of the police department’s thinking. “And he probably deserved to die.”
Officer Donna Drake, a police department spokeswoman, said the domestic violence investigation was submitted as part of the officer-involved shooting investigation at the same time because they were directly related.
Laurie Bey, the mother of Cameron Lamb, said Friday that she learned that police had submitted a domestic violence case file to prosecutors when she was told by a reporter from The Star.
“So they always try to paint this picture to make my son look as if he was a bad guy,” Bey said. “If they are talking about charging a dead man, they are crazy. They are crazy and desperate.”
Minutes after the shooting that day, Police Chief Rick Smith was captured on an audio recording: “Everyone is good, house is cleared. Bad guy’s dead.”
After the shooting, Baker said she expected investigators would submit a probable cause statement of the incident, as is common in homicide cases.
But weeks after the shooting, they still hadn’t. So on Feb. 10, 2020, her office requested a probable cause statement from police, Baker said Thursday.
Two days after not receiving the case file, Baker said she made a more formal request to Kansas City police. But detectives still did not send the case file to her office.
Baker said she was told that her actions in requesting the case file “would greatly harm the department’s morale.”
“So the investigative team was already trying to defame his (Lamb’s) character because it’s not just silly, it was purposeful,” Baker said. “They had intent in doing that, to work up a domestic violence case from that morning on Cameron Lamb who they killed at noon.”
Police later sent Baker a case file of the shooting but it did not contain a probable cause statement.
She later laid out her concerns in a letter to Chief Smith when the department began withholding probable cause statements in cases accusing officers of excessive force.
Lamb was shot after officers investigating an unrelated vehicle crash reported a red pickup chasing a purple Ford Mustang. Officers in a police helicopter spotted the truck driven by Lamb and followed the vehicle to his residence. Lamb’s girlfriend was driving the Mustang, but the chase did not last long and she did not drive to Lamb’s house.
DeValkenaere and his partner, detective Troy Schwalm, were members of the Violent Offender Squad and were working the streets in plain clothes and driving unmarked vehicles on the day of the shooting. Listening to the police dispatcher about the chase, DeValkenaere and Schwalm, who were nearby, went to Lamb’s house. The detectives confronted him as he backed his pickup into the garage.
DeValkenaere said he fired several shots after Lamb pointed a gun at Schwalm. Police later found Lamb inside the truck with his left arm and head hanging out of the driver’s side window. A handgun was found on the ground near Lamb’s left hand, police said at the time.
During the criminal trial, prosecutors argued DeValkenaere had no legal right to be on Lamb’s property. They said there was no evidence anyone dialed 911, that anyone was hurt or that a crime had taken place when DeValkenaere and Schwalm arrived at Lamb’s residence.
They also alleged the crime scene was staged and evidence was planted. They said it took only nine seconds from the time DeValkenaere arrived at the front yard of the house to the moment he fatally shot Lamb.
Defense attorneys said DeValkenaere opened fire when he saw Lamb point a handgun at his partner.
This story was originally published March 4, 2022 at 4:19 PM.
