Kansas City Officer Charged in Fatal Shooting of Black Man

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A grand jury on Thursday indicted a Kansas City detective on involuntary manslaughter in the shooting of a black man who was killed last year in his own backyard while backing into his garage.

The Jackson County grand jury also charged Detective Eric DeValkenaere with armed criminal action in the Dec. 3 killing of Cameron Lamb outside his Kansas City home.

DeValkenaere, who had returned to duty after the shooting, is now suspended, the Kansas City Police Department said Thursday in a statement.

Lamb’s relatives were among several families of black Americans killed in interactions with police to meet privately this week with Trump before a Rose Garden signing ceremony for an executive order that the president said would encourage better police practices. The issue has received increased scrutiny since the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

In December, Lamb was seen chasing a car in his pickup truck. Officers in a police helicopter followed Lamb, a 26-year-old father of three, and alerted officers on the ground when he backed into a lot behind his home, police said in a statement at the time.

Two plain-clothes detectives, the statement said, went to the house and made contact with Lamb in the backyard while he was still in the truck. One officer said he fired at Lamb after he watched Lamb pull out a gun and point it at the other officer who had approached the truck. The statement said Lamb was found with his left hand hanging out of the truck’s window, a gun on the ground beneath.

An internal police inquiry is complete, and the case has been turned over to Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker. Her spokeswoman, Michael Mansur, said Thursday that Lamb’s death remains under investigation.

A warrant has been issued and bond is set at $30,000. No court date has been set.

DeValkenaere has been with KCPD since 1999, the department said.

Before the indictment was announced Thursday, an online change.org petition demanding charges had collected more than 200,000 signatures.

Lee Merritt, a civil rights attorney who is representing Lamb’s family, said it was a brief dispute with a girlfriend that caused the pursuit. He told The Star earlier this year that police were on Lamb’s property illegally and recklessly pursued a nonviolent traffic offender. Merritt also questioned whether officers violated Lamb’s Second Amendment right to bear arms.

“As a constitutional lawyer, I am particularly offended when people of color are killed in their own home,” Merritt said. “It’s something about the sanctity of someone’s home that should be protected.”

No lawsuit has been filed yet. Merritt wasn’t immediately available for an interview Thursday with The Associated Press.

Merritt is also representing the family of Ahmaud Arbery, who was fatally shot in February when a white father and son pursued the 25-year-old black man after spotting him running in their subdivision just outside of Brunswick, Georgia.

Lamb’s family and that of 47-year old Donnie Sanders, who also was fatally shot by police, are calling for the names of the officers involved to be released. Sanders died in March after a confrontation during a traffic stop. Police said Sanders raised his arms “as though he had a weapon,” but investigators later determined that Sanders was unarmed.

The families have the support of the group One Struggle KC, which is pushing for the termination of the officers, WDAF-TV reported.

“Why not let us know who killed these people?” said One Struggle KC spokesperson Nikki Smith said.