Eric Devalkenaere is Going to Prison. The Problems in the Kansas City Police Department Run Much Deeper.

     Four weeks ago, Kansas City Police Department Officer Eric Develkenaere, who was convicted in November 2021 of armed criminal action and involuntary manslaughter in the shooting death of unarmed black man Cameron Lamb, was sentenced to six years in prison. Considering he had no criminal history and faced a maximum sentence of 18 years, it was a fairly good sentence. Square it with that of Kim Potter, who was given two years for the same crime with a higher maximum penalty. As I stated in a previous article, the fact that Develkenaere was granted an appeals bond shows there is work to be done, but the results of the case are generally good ones, as good as they can be in a tragic and senseless killing. Develkenaere's sentence, while holding him accountable, only brings about justice if it changes the deeper problems in the KCPD.

     According to a December 2020 study, the Kansas City Police Department is among the top 10 most brutal in the United States, coming in at number nine, to be exact. The most alarming statistic related to Kansas City, which kills eight to nine people and shoots dozens of others every year, was that deadly force is nearly four times as likely to be used on black residents as it is on white residents. 

     Even black officers are not immune. Take, for example, the March 2021 incident of Herb Robinson, a black Kansas City detective who, despite being a higher rank than the two officers who pulled him over without cause and in uniform, was called a "dumbass" and a "retard" by a white and a Hispanic officer. Former Officer Scott Wells said being black in the KCPD was like "being a mouse in a snake cage." Their stories are two of more than 25 black officers who have come forward to describe the rampant racism inside the department. Although black people make up 30 percent of the Kansas City population, only 12 percent of officers are black. That percentage gets smaller the higher in rank one goes, demonstrating that black officers are given almost no chance to rise through the ranks in the department like their white colleagues are. This, combined with rampant racial discrimination by white officers, is a huge part of the reason that, according to a 2022 study, the percentage of black officers is going down. The number of black officers is going down even as the overall number of officers goes up.

     If that's what officers go through, you can probably imagine what civilians are subjected to. In 2013, an unarmed man who stole a phone was shot in the back by a police officer while running away; the KCPD gave him an award for doing so. Aside from the Lamb incident, the worst of the department came out during the 2020 George Floyd protests. Over 150 nonviolent protestors were violently arrested and later had their charges dropped. A man was convicted of failure to obey law enforcement for filming cops violently arresting a woman for trespassing; he would be pardoned by the mayor while the officers would be charged with felony assault. Another instance saw a man and his young daughter pepper sprayed for standing on a sidewalk near the protests; the officers would be charged with misdemeanor assault, which is lucky considering what they did could have earned them a federal civil rights charge.

     It's clear: the work environment in the KCPD is one that allows officers to feel invincible, to harass black coworkers without consequences and to be awarded for brutalizing civilians. When people dare question their violence, their peaceful pleas have been met with more violence. Thankfully, the Missouri justice system hasn't turned a blind eye to officers who break the law. The investigation launched by the Obama administration into the Kansas City Police Department over its racist harassment against black cops in 2009 went nowhere, and I am calling on the Biden administration to launch an investigation into the department over its violence against peaceful protestors and other civil rights violations, similar to the ones that have already been launched in Phoenix, Louisville, Mount Vernon, and Minneapolis.