Why it took years for a convicted KCPD officer to lose his license | Opinion
Recently, while perusing the Missouri Department of Public Safety’s list of revoked or surrendered peace officer licenses, I came across a familiar yet somewhat surprising name: Eric DeValkenaere.
When I checked that same list months ago, I found it odd that the former Kansas City police detective’s name was nowhere to be found.
If you recall, in 2021, DeValkenaere became the city’s first police officer to be convicted of killing a Black man. To learn that his license wasn’t automatically revoked after legal proceedings concluded was shocking.
In Missouri, there is no state law that automatically revokes a convicted officer’s license, but there should be. In Illinois and a few other states, officers convicted of felonies or serious misdemeanors are automatically stripped of their licenses, according to The Marshall Project.
And the Kansas Commission on Peace Officers’ Standards and Training has the power to revoke an officer’s license for many reasons unlike in Missouri.
That must change.
DeValkenaere quietly surrendered license
Almost six years after DeValkenaere fatally shot Cameron Lamb in 2019, the ex-lawman finally surrendered his police license sometime last year. I can’t quite pinpoint the exact date DeValkenaere turned over his license, but it may have been between last April when I first noticed the omission and June.
The DPS reports are posted online quarterly. Last fall, KCUR reported DeValkenare appeared on the spreadsheet dated June 30.
In an email, I asked Molly Hastings, one of DeValkenaere’s defense attorneys, if she knew when and under what circumstances did he give up his license.
“Sorry I am in a jury trial this week and don’t have this information handy right now,” Hastings wrote in a reply email Jan. 29. Subsequent inquiries sent to Hastings since, including a request to interview DeValkenaere, were not returned.
David Smith, an attorney that represented Lamb’s family in civil claims brought against the police department, said that he would not make Lamb’s mother, Laurie Bey, available for comment. Bey wants to focus on peace and her healing journey, Smith told me. He added that he was not aware that DeValkenaere had surrendered his license until we spoke this week.
Last year, Lamb’s family and Kansas City police agreed to settle a federal civil rights lawsuit filed against KCPD for $4.1 million.
“Good investigative journalism has always been a part of social change,” Smith wrote in a text message. Without the spotlight of the media, Eric DeValkenaere would still be a licensed peace officer somewhere despite serving time in prison. Hopefully his experience will help instill a cultural change within the Kansas City Police Department and constitutional rights will not be an afterthought.”
Missouri POST process has gaps
Many of you may wonder why it took so long for DeValkenere to lose his police license officially, and I wouldn’t blame you if you did. After all, DeValkenaere was convicted of second-degree manslaughter and armed criminal action in Lamb’s death .
One would think a killer cop would automatically lose their license upon being found guilty of manslaughter and exhausting all appeals at the state level. Sadly, that is not the case, as I found out months ago from Department of Public Safety spokesman Mike O’Connell.
Last spring, I wrote a column explaining why DeValkenaere’s license wasn’t revoked or surrendered. Unless a formal complaint was made against him with the state’s peace officer standards and training program known as POST, no investigation could begin, O’Connell told me then.
“POST conducts initial investigations if it receives a complaint from the public, a report indicating misconduct from the officer’s law enforcement agency when he is terminated, when it learns of a potential issue in a news story, etc.,” O’Connell wrote in an email in April.
Even if a complaint moves forward, findings have to go through an administrative hearing before being sent to the Missouri Attorney General’s Office for review, O’Connell wrote.
“POST cannot act unilaterally,” he wrote. “The Administrative Hearing Commission must rule that there is cause for the DPS director to discipline an officer’s license. POST puts together a case and sends it to the Missouri Attorney General’s Office to review, advise and potentially present the case.”
At the time of my previous inquiry, DeValkenaere’s license was merely inactive, meaning the former detective had failed to satisfy yearly continuing law enforcement education requirements, O’Connell wrote then.
“In Missouri, no one can hold a commission with a law enforcement agency without an active peace officer license,” he wrote.
Late last month, I asked O’Connell if he could provide the date DeValkenaere turned over his peace officer’s license and if any formal complaints were made against him before he surrendered it.
“The requested records are closed under RSMo Section 590.180.2,” O’Connell wrote.
Missouri needs change
In a 2021 bench trial, Jackson County judge J. Dale Youngs found DeValkenaere guilty of second-degree involuntary manslaughter and armed criminal action in Lamb’s death. Despite being sentenced to six years in the state penitentiary, DeValkenaere remained free during a lengthy appeals process.
The Missouri Court of Appeals upheld the conviction, and when the Missouri Supreme Court refused to review the case, DeValkenaere turned himself in to authorities in Platte County before being shipped off to Western Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center in St. Joseph to begin his prison sentence. He was confined behind bars for a little more than a year before then-Gov. Mike Parson granted him clemency.
I strongly believe that DeValkenaere should have done the honorable thing and surrendered his license then. Because there is no law requiring this, Missouri lawmakers must act.
Just like its neighbors to the east and west have done, Missouri must prevent rogue cops from keeping their police licenses long after they’ve committed serious crimes.
This story was originally published February 12, 2026 at 10:29 AM.
