In an audacious, gut-wrenching turn of events that stabs at even the semblance of justice, the wife of convicted KCPD cop Eric DeValkenaere has launched a crusade to whitewash his heinous act.
Backed by hundreds of “Back the Blue” supporters, she is demanding a gubernatorial pardon, brazenly describing her husband as a ‘hero’ for his cold-blooded, indefensible execution of 26-year-old Cameron Lamb.
Dehumanization & Criminalization
To deepen this appalling narrative, she appeared on a lesser-known right-wing extremist talk show, where she spouted numerous lies about Cameron—each one already unequivocally disproven in a court of law.
The lie that Cameron was being pursued in a traffic stop. The lie that the cops made verbal commands and Cameron disobeyed them. The lie that Cameron had a gun on his person. The lie that Cameron pointed the gun at the cops when they unlawfully trespassed onto his property. The lie that he was armed at all.
Each of her lies have been repeatedly exposed multiple times over, in multiple courtrooms and by multiple judges.
Eric DeValkenaere’s ‘historic’ status as the first white cop in the over 145-year saga of the Kansas City Police Department to be convicted for murdering a Black man is not a mere aberration or judicial fluke.
Clearly, for a white cop in Kansas City to be convicted of murdering a Black individual—a feat previously deemed impossible—it necessitates overwhelmingly incontrovertible evidence
Even further, a three-judge panel in the Missouri Court of Appeals Western District unanimously upheld this conviction, further cementing his guilt.
When deciding to uphold his conviction, the panel of judges irrevocably established that DeValkenaere not only killed Cameron Lamb but did so with abject criminal negligence, entirely devoid of justification for deploying deadly force, and in a flagrant violation of the law by unlawfully trespassing into Lamb’s backyard.
After the appeals court ruling, Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker stated that the Lamb family ‘have endured a dishonest campaign designed to devalue the life of their loved one and malign his character.’ When, we must ask, will this insidious campaign of disinformation and character assassination come to an end?
Yet, there is a haunting shard of truth in her words: DeValkenaere was, indeed, ‘just doing his job that day.’
The Kansas City Police Department has been, since its very inception, a grim machinery of terror specifically engineered to kill, intimidate, and surveil Black people. DeValkenaere’s actions, far from being an anomaly, were a chilling embodiment of his department’s long-standing, fascist, white supremacist ethos.
A Community’s Struggle for Justice
While the plea from DeValkenaere’s wife might reek of audacity, it cannot overshadow the collective effort it took to hold him accountable. It was a painstaking fight led by community activists, advocacy groups, and the relentless pursuit of justice by the Lamb family.
Despite this being the first time in KCPD’s 147-year history that a white officer has been convicted of killing a Black man, it’s a woefully insufficient step towards a fair system. KCPD is currently under federal scrutiny for racism and discrimination, and shockingly ranks among the top 5 worst police departments in the nation.
Community Demands
Nimrod Chapel, President of the Missouri NAACP, makes it abundantly clear: this is “a feature of a criminal legal system designed never to hold cops or white supremacy accountable.” The Kansas City community supports this sentiment, advocating for an overhaul of a corrupt and irredeemable institution, and demanding a shift of our city resources toward critical public services like mental health, affordable housing, and education.
What’s Next
The Lamb family and community members are urging all outraged and concerned folks to take action by calling the governors office and demanding he not pardon convicted killer Eric DeValkenaere. Information is in the graphics below;
