Cactus Flower,
This is yet another example of how 'race' in this country is an issue, that many don't understand in other countries.
A bill to reform the police is stuck in the senate, mostly because police are opposed... like asking the foxes how to protect the chickens.
A Black man was killed by police in his driveway, lawsuit says. His family is now suing for $10 million.
By Timothy Bella
June 29, 2021 at 5:01 p.m. EDT
Police tracking a car involved in a traffic incident in December 2019 followed Cameron Lamb as he was pulling his red pickup truck into the garage of his backyard in Kansas City, Mo. Without a warrant or permission allowing them on the property, two plainclothes detectives “stormed around the side of the house” and demanded to know where he was, according to a federal lawsuit.
Then, while Lamb, a Black man, allegedly had one hand on the steering wheel and the other on his cellphone, Detective Eric DeValkenaere, who is White, offered no warning before shooting him four times while the man was still in his truck in the driveway, hitting him twice and killing the 26-year-old, attorneys say.
Now, a federal lawsuit filed Monday on behalf of Lamb’s four young children accuses the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners and DeValkenaere of violating Lamb’s civil rights when they entered the property without permission and fatally shot him in his truck.
The 20-page lawsuit, filed in the Western District of Missouri, seeks $10 million in damages and alleges that the police board “failed to properly train, supervise, screen, discipline, transfer, counsel or otherwise properly equip and control officers” to avoid the use of deadly force against Lamb.
“The Kansas City Police Department has a well-documented, continuing, widespread, and persistent pattern of utilizing excessive and often deadly force,” the family’s attorneys wrote in the lawsuit, obtained by The Washington Post.
The 42-year-old DeValkenaere, who was charged with first-degree involuntary manslaughter and armed criminal action last year, has pleaded not guilty before his criminal trial scheduled for September. A member of the force since 1999, DeValkenaere says that he fired after Lamb pointed a gun at Detective Troy Schwalm. But prosecutors say in the lawsuit that Schwalm told a grand jury that he did not see Lamb with a gun.
....
The lawsuit comes as Lamb’s family has sought answers for more than 18 months in a fatal shooting that the former officer’s criminal attorneys say was not reckless and that the police union argues was a justified use of force. Family and activists have repeatedly questioned DeValkenaere’s account. Prosecutors have noted how authorities had refused to give a probable cause statement in the investigation and did not inform them how DeValkenaere’s former supervisor was conducting the probe.
more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/06/29/cameron-lamb-police-shooting-kansascity/
Do something positive.
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