Kansas City, Missouri (AP) — A judge on Friday was a white Kansas City police officer who unintentionally killed and armed criminal acts in a fatal shooting of a black man in a case in which police planted evidence. Convicted the official.
Jackson County Judge Dale Youngs has sentenced Police Officer Eric Debarkenale on the bench at the death of 26-year-old Cameron Lamb. Ram was shot when he returned to the garage on December 3, 2019, after chasing his girlfriend’s convertible on a stolen pickup truck.
Youngs called it a tragic event with annoying facts and said De Valkenaere and the cops with him escalated the calm situation.
After the sentence, police escorted De Valkenaere and his family from the building. The officer said he would not comment.
Lee Merritt, a Texas civil rights lawyer, spoke on behalf of Lamb’s family.
“I won’t bring him back today. Justice will be short, but this is significant. This is historic, and that means something,” said Merritt.
DeValkenaere testified during the trial that Ram fired after pointing a gun at another detective, Troy Schwalm, and believed that his actions saved the lives of his partner.
“I think,’I can’t make this happen, I can’t allow him to shoot a trojan,'” Debarkenaere told the court.
However, prosecutors claimed that police did not have a warrant on the premises and staged a shooting scene to support their claim that Ram was armed. The prosecution said Ram had his left hand on the steering wheel of the truck and his cell phone in his right hand before being shot.
Another police officer who first arrived at the scene after the shooting testified during the trial that he could not see the gun on the ground beneath Lamb’s left arm hanging from the window of the truck. But later, there was a gun in the police photo.
Two bullets were found in the morgue’s ram pocket, but crime scene technicians could not find them on the scene. The prosecution also questioned whether right-handed Ram could have used his left hand to pull a gun because of a previous injury. The defense insisted that he could have.
“We believe that what we asked for in this case was just the result, and that is our position today,” Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said after the decision.
According to Youngs, police officers had no reason to believe that the crime had been committed, and had no arrest warrant for Ram, no investigation warrant, or consent to property. He described the police as the first invaders and stated that they were obliged to withdraw, but De Valkenaere instead used illegally deadly forces.
The verdict was made after a bench trial in front of the judge without a jury at the request of De Valkenaere. DeValkenaere remains freely detained until sentenced. No sentencing trial is planned.
The murder of his three fathers, Ram, was often triggered during a racially unjustified protest in Kansas City last year. And it was in several cases cited by a group of civil rights groups in a petition urging US Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate the Kansas City Police Department. The prosecution of the case came a few days after Ram’s death received new attention due to the meeting of then-President Donald Trump and his family in 2020.
Daron Edwards, one of the local ministers who has led efforts to improve police in the minority community, said he was grateful for the ruling.
“There is a lot of hope for this family, and for many who are in a position to come to the legal system to find the kind of justice we all believe the county holds,” Edwards said. Said.
Last year, prosecutors filed criminal charges against five white Kansas City police officers for using excessive force against blacks. DeValkenaere was the only officer charged with the murder on duty.
Missouri police officer convicted of a black man’s death in 2019
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