In letter, KC Council says they’ll only negotiate police budget with a new chief
Audio of Kansas City Police Chief Rick Smith, minutes after Cameron Lamb was fatally shot by detective Eric DeValkenaere, declaring that all was right with the world does not, unfortunately, come as the shock that it should.
“Everybody’s good,” Smith said at the scene of the 2019 shooting, where Lamb had been killed in his own backyard, after police had seen him speeding after another car. “House is clear. Bad guy is dead.”
Everybody who counts is good, in other words. And because a 26-year-old Black man about whom Smith at that point could have known little to nothing had been killed by one of his own officers, well then, that man must by definition have been a bad guy.
Is that why Lamb was a guy to whom no aid was rendered for 14 minutes after DeValkenaere shot him four times? By the time paramedics were finally allowed in, he had already bled out.
Does anyone really wonder why Black Kansas Citians might have the odd feeling that Smith regards them all as bad guys?
After hearing the recording, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said, “As a father of a Black son and as a Black man, it pains me to hear audio during an official police investigation that denigrates a fellow human being. I will ask Chief Smith about the veracity of the audio and will withhold further comment until after our discussion.”
Smith has always maintained that there is no such thing as a bad police shooting.
In 1941, less than 48 hours after two Kansas City vice cops fatally shot a Black man named Harrison Ware for no good reason, Police Chief Lear B. Reed announced that he had investigated and found that the officers had done nothing wrong. That was an in-depth probe compared to Smith’s judgment that Lamb’s shooting was justified.
A judge has disagreed, of course. DeValkenaere has been found guilty of manslaughter, and Smith is leaving the department, though his fan club continues to insist that there’s no connection between those two facts.
But whether Smith knows it or not, he’s also lost the confidence of many rank-and-file officers.
This appalling snippet of him writing off a dead man as a bad guy should stiffen the resolve of officials who want him gone ASAP but fear backlash if they force the issue.
At least six members of the Kansas City Council are putting out a letter agreeing with Smith’s “decision” to leave, though that version of events is face-saving hooey.
“We understand, however,” the letter says, “that Chief Smith is considering delaying his departure until March of 2022, in order to participate in negotiations on the 2022-23 police budget. In the 2022-23 budget, the majority of the Council supports appropriating fully the 20% of the City’s General Fund, in complete compliance with the City’s obligation under State law. Any amount over that sum will be subject to negotiation as to the use of those funds. It would be inappropriate for such negotiations to be based on the desires and priorities of an outgoing Chief.”
Amen to that.
Councilwoman Melissa Robinson said she would like to see a less flowery letter: “A Black man’s been murdered, and we as a council should acknowledge this is a problem. I have a knot in my stomach about this whole thing. Why can we as a council not come out and denounce this situation” of a department run by someone who defends DeValkenaere and all police shooters?
If ever there were a time for our elected local leaders to stand up and use the power of the purse that is their only leverage over our state-run police department, and even then only at budget time, it’s right this minute.
Every day Rick Smith is in the job hurts the city and his own officers, some of whom actually want more training and less tension.
This story was originally published November 30, 2021 at 2:02 PM.