Former Kansas City police officers plead guilty to assaulting transgender woman
Updated: Law enforcement officials and community leaders spoke Monday about the two former officers who pleaded guilty. That story is posted here.
Two former Kansas City police officers accused of assaulting a Black transgender woman pleaded guilty during a court hearing Monday afternoon.
Charles W. Prichard and Matthew G. Brummett each faced a felony third-degree assault charge for slamming the head of Breona Hill into the ground during an arrest in May 2019. A passerby captured video of the officers assaulting Hill and placing one of their knees on her neck.
“God help me,” Hill cried, according to court records.
The former officers were indicted in May 2020. Prosecutors alleged other officers who viewed the cell phone footage agreed that the amount of force Prichard and Brummett used was excessive. Hill’s eyes were swollen for several days and she remained in pain for several weeks after the assault, court records said.
Five months after the assault, Hill was found fatally shot after an argument in the 4300 block of Hardesty Avenue.
A court record entry last week showed that Prichard, 50, and Brummett, 39, were scheduled to enter the plea of guilty during a hearing at 2 p.m. Monday at the Jackson County Courthouse in downtown Kansas City.
A criminal trial for both men was scheduled to begin next Monday.
Both men left the police department in December, although it was not clear what circumstances led to their leaving. The officers were also accused of using excessive force in two other alleged incidents.
Civil rights leaders have been critical of the police department and former police chief Rick Smith on how they dealt with officers accused of using excessive force against Black people.
The names of Hill and the Black men who were fatally shot by KCPD officers were chanted during protests against police brutality and racism in the summer of 2020.
“It shouldn’t be that the only time officers are held accountable for excessive force are through the judicial system,” said Lora McDonald, executive director of the Metro Organization for Racial and Economic Equity (MORE2). “This will make four officers guilty of serious criminal infractions while behind the badge. These are real people they’ve hurt. There has to be a better way to weed out bad officers than indictment.”
One other KCPD officer currently faces criminal charges.
Officer Nicholas McQuillen is charged with a misdemeanor assault after he was seen in a viral video dousing a man and his teenage daughter with pepper spray at a protest at the Plaza in the summer of 2020.
McQuillen, who is currently assigned to the patrol division, is scheduled to go to trial on those charges on Dec. 12. Earlier this year, the police department paid $110,000 in a legal settlement to the teenage girl.
In October, former KCPD Sgt. Matthew Neal was placed on four years probation after he pleaded guilty to smashing the face of a 15-year-old boy in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant on Troost Avenue in 2019.
As part of his plea agreement with prosecutors, Neal had to surrender his law enforcement license and write a letter of apology to the victim.
Another former KCPD officer, Eric J. DeValkenaere, was sentenced to six years in prison for the Dec. 3, 2019, shooting death of a Black man. DeValkenaere remains free on bond while he appeals the conviction.
He was convicted of second-degree involuntary manslaughter and armed criminal action in the killing of Cameron Lamb, who was backing his pickup truck into his garage when he was shot.
DeValkenaere was sentenced to three years on the involuntary manslaughter conviction and six years on the armed criminal action conviction, the sentences to run concurrently.
Attorneys for DeValkenaere filed an 84-page appeal seeking to have the conviction overturned and be granted a new criminal trial.
This story was originally published November 14, 2022 at 10:35 AM.
