Family of DoorDash driver shot by KCKPD alleges excessive force, wrongful death in lawsuit

The mother of a man killed during a traffic stop in Kansas City, Kansas, last year has filed a lawsuit against the local government, saying her son was unarmed and posed no threat to police when an officer fatally shot him in his car.

Amaree’ya Henderson, of Kansas City, was killed in April 2023 after an officer jumped onto the doorframe of his vehicle to prevent Henderson from leaving a traffic stop, according to the lawsuit, filed Friday in the Kansas City, Kansas office of the U.S. District of Kansas.

Lawyers for Pauletta Johnson, his mother, allege the officer fired “blindly” into the vehicle — while Henderson’s girlfriend was in the passenger seat — and had put himself in danger. He killed the 25-year-old when there were other, safer courses of action available, the lawsuit says.

“A vehicle departing a traffic stop does not give a police officer an ongoing license to kill an unthreatening citizen,” lawyers wrote in the lawsuit, adding that there was never so much as an allegation Henderson was “armed with any type of weapon” and that he was not wanted for a crime.

Named as defendants in the lawsuit are the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, the police department and Officer Austin Schuler.

Nancy Chartrand, a Kansas City, Kansas, police spokeswoman, said Friday in response to The Star’s request for comment that the officer remains employed at the department after being cleared in local and federal investigations.

“Both the Wyandotte County District Attorney’s Office and the Department of Justice reviewed the facts of the case and determined that criminal charges against Officer Schuler were not warranted,” she said in a statement.

Krystal McFeders, a spokeswoman for county and city government, said in a statement the Unified Government had not yet been served with the lawsuit. She added the “Unified Government is unable to comment on any pending litigation.

Traffic stop gone wrong

On April 26, 2023, Henderson and his girlfriend Shakira Hill had just completed a DoorDash delivery in the Shawnee Heights neighborhood when Schuler pulled them over on Metropolitan Avenue near the 12th Street Bridge, according to the lawsuit.

Henderson gave the officer his driver’s license and registration, according to the lawsuit. The couple believed the officer was writing a ticket for expired plates, according to the lawsuit, and Henderson contacted his mother via FaceTime.

More uniformed officers responded to the scene, according to the lawsuit, and Schuler approached the vehicle again with his flashlight. During the encounter, lawyers allege the officer unnecessarily escalated the situation by pulling the door of Henderson’s vehicle open.

The lawyers say Henderson, fearing for his life, began to drive away as Schuler planted himself on the doorframe, unholstered his weapon and shot the 25-year-old in the arm and face. The vehicle collided with a parked car.

Police have said the officer was treated at the hospital for minor injuries after the shooting.

In addition to wrongly killing Henderson, the lawsuit accuses the police officer of violating police department policies and training.

None of the officers employed de-escalation techniques during the traffic stop, the lawyers allege. And the shooting of a motorist behind the wheel of a running car — a practice generally discouraged by policing experts — is restricted by KCK police policy to situations where an officer or another person is in danger.

In March 2023, one month after the shooting, District Attorney Mark Dupree’s office said no criminal charges would be filed against the police officer. Prosecutors reviewed the evidence and concluded the officer reasonably feared for his life when the vehicle took off at “high speed” and Henderson “refused commands” to stop.

Demands for body camera footage

The shooting of Henderson prompted community protests in 2023 along with wider calls for transparency from area activists. Leaders of the police reform group Justice for Wyandotte last year called for the law enforcement officials to release footage of the shooting to the public, a step taken in select cases, including the killing of a former police detective who had disarmed an officer in 2022.

Body camera footage of the Henderson shooting has never been publicly released. In Kansas, family members and their attorneys can privately view such recordings, but state law limits the situations where videos are required to be broadly shared.

Body camera videos are considered criminal investigation records and are publicly released at the discretion of the police department or other officials like the district attorney.

The Star’s request for a copy of the video was denied by the Unified Government in December.

Over a five-year period, law enforcement officials released one video out of the agency’s eight fatal police shootings, a recent Star review of body camera disclosures across the state found.

In April, the brother of a man who was killed in February 2023 filed a lawsuit for the footage of that police shooting. That case remains ongoing in Wyandotte County District Court.

The lawsuit brought Friday by Henderson’s mother includes claims of constitutional rights violations and wrongful death. It demands a jury trial in federal court.