In Kansas City courts this week, two ‘firsts’ involving Black lives stolen by police
What were the odds that on the same day in the same midsize, Middle American town,
1) a white police officer would, for the first time in Kansas City history, go on trial for killing a Black man and
2) a Missouri prosecutor would, also for the first time, under a new state law, get to argue in court that an innocent, 62-year-old Black Kansas City man should at last go free, 43 years after his wrongful conviction by an all-white jury?
Impossible, right? Yet these two improbable proceedings, each of them groundbreaking, are both on the docket here on Monday morning.
At 9 a.m., the trial of KCPD Detective Eric J. DeValkenaere, accused of shooting 26-year-old Cameron Lamb to death in his own backyard in December of 2019, is supposed to start.
DeValkenaere has been charged with first-degree involuntary manslaughter. And yes, his bench trial, before Circuit Court Judge J. Dale Youngs, is the first-ever criminal trial of a white officer in the death of a Black Kansas Citian.
An hour later, Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker will finally get to present evidence that Kevin Strickland had nothing to do with the 1978 triple murder for which he has been in prison ever since.
Both of these cases show how unjustly our criminal justice system too often still treats Black people.
Of the two, it’s Strickland’s innocence hearing, before Judge James E. Welsh, that will draw more attention.
In May, Baker called Strickland, who was only 18 at the time of his arrest, “factually innocent.”
Last year, The Star reported that the two men who pleaded guilty in those killings have always said that Strickland was not with them that night. A third, uncharged suspect said the same. The only eyewitness, who is no longer alive, said she was pressured into implicating Strickland. Prosecutors threatened to charge her with perjury, she said, if she tried to change her testimony.
The callousness of Missouri Gov. Mike Parson’s response to Baker’s announcement also made news everywhere. First, he suggested that it just wouldn’t be fair to let Strickland jump the line ahead of 3,000 other applicants for clemency. Then, the longtime sheriff said he wasn’t so sure of Strickland’s innocence anyway — and was not willing to meet with those who could answer any questions he might have. Though this isn’t law and isn’t order, it is how our law-and-order governor sees the world.
Parson wasn’t alone in his willingness to let Strickland continue to pay for a crime he did not commit. Let no one say that Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who is running for the U.S. Senate, did not do everything in his power to deprive Strickland of a new day in court.
Yet I’m more optimistic that Strickland will soon go free than that DeValkenaere will ever be found guilty, no matter how strong the case against him turns out to be.
And of the two proceedings, it’s the DeValkenaere case that could have a bigger impact on Kansas City’s future, at least potentially influencing the KCPD’s budget, policies and leadership for years to come.
Police detective told grand jury he saw no weapon
DeValkenaere allegedly shot Lamb after officers reported seeing his red pickup chasing a purple Ford Mustang. As Lamb pulled into his driveway, DeValkenaere and another detective, Troy Schwalm, ran into his backyard in street clothes, without a warrant and without asking anyone’s permission, prosecutors have said.
The officer has said that he only fired after Lamb pointed a gun at Schwalm with his left hand. According to prosecutors, Schwalm told the grand jury that he did not see Lamb with a weapon.
He deserves enormous credit for being willing to say that: The blue wall of silence that has always made it harder to hold police accountable is not so easily breached.
Lamb was found dead inside his truck, with his left arm and head hanging out of the window. On the ground near his left hand, police said they found a handgun.
Only, Lamb was right-handed, and because of an old injury, did not have full use of his left hand.
Prosecutors say his left hand was on the steering wheel and his right hand was holding his phone, which was still leaving someone a voicemail after he died.
In Kansas City courtrooms this week, we’ll hear how two Black men had their lives stolen. One was ended by lethal force, and the other was wasted, through indifference so sturdy that it has outlasted any possible confusion about what happened on April 25, 1978.
“I’m losing belief that the system is gonna work,” Strickland told CBS News last month. That he has any faith left at all only shows how hard hope is to kill.
