Cameron Lamb’s family sues Kansas City police over his killing, seeks more than $10M

Relatives of Cameron Lamb have filed a lawsuit against the Kansas City police board and the detective who fatally shot him in 2019 as he sat in a pickup truck in his own backyard.

The lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court on behalf of Lamb’s four minor children, claims Eric DeValkenaere, 41, violated Lamb’s civil rights when he entered Lamb’s property before the shooting on Dec. 3, 2019, at 4154 College Ave.

Attorneys for Lamb’s children also allege the Kansas City Police Department has a “well-documented, continuing, widespread and persistent pattern” of using excessive and frequent deadly force.

Last year, a Jackson County grand jury indicted DeValkenaere for first-degree involuntary manslaughter and armed criminal action in Lamb’s death. He has pleaded not guilty, and a bench trial is set to begin Sept. 7.

Lawsuit by Cameron Lamb’s family is one of several pending against Kansas City police

5 KC police officers face criminal charges, accused of killing, excessive use of force

On the day Lamb was killed, an officer went to investigate a disturbance between occupants of two vehicles, and a police helicopter tracked one of the vehicles as it pulled behind the College Avenue home.

DeValkenaere and another plainclothes detective, Troy Schwalm, arrived at the scene.

The lawsuit echoes one of the central claims in the criminal case against DeValkenaere: Neither he nor Schwalm asked for permission to go onto the property and did not have a warrant.

A resident of the home, who was sitting on the porch, did not give the detectives permission to enter — nor did they ask for it, according to the lawsuit. They then “stormed around the side of the house” and into the backyard, the suit claimed.

Before he was shot, Lamb had his left hand on the truck’s steering wheel and his cellphone in his right hand, according to the lawsuit. Schwalm later told the grand jury that he did not see Lamb with a weapon, prosecutors have said.

DeValkenaere provided no warning and shot at Lamb four times, striking him twice, according to the lawsuit.

DeValkenaere’s lawyers have previously claimed that Lamb pulled a gun with his left hand, while prosecutors contend Lamb was right-handed and did not have full use of his left hand as a result of a prior injury.

Police investigating the shooting found Lamb inside the vehicle with his left arm and head hanging out of the driver’s side window. On the ground near his left hand was a handgun, according to police.

Additionally, the lawsuit alleges that Police Chief Rick Smith assigned a former supervisor of Schwalm and DeValkenaere to conduct the investigation into the shooting. Smith also intentionally withheld that information from Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker, which undermined the integrity of the investigation, according to the suit.

Capt. Leslie Foreman, a police spokeswoman, said the department does not comment on pending litigation to “ensure fairness for all sides involved.”

S. Lee Merritt, an attorney representing Lamb’s children, said the detectives conducted “a warrantless search, essentially.”

“It violates one of the highest protections that is anticipated in the court,” Merritt told The Star. “That’s a really important reason why Cameron’s case is a central case in terms of where we are today in policing.”

The lawsuit is seeking compensatory damages in excess of $10 million against both the police board, which oversees the department, and DeValkenaere, who has been an officer since 1999 and was assigned to the investigative bureau. He has since been suspended.

Merritt, a Texas attorney, has significant experience in representing victims of police brutality.

He was co-counsel for the family of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed May 25, 2020, by Minneapolis Police Department officer Derek Chauvin, which set off international protests of police brutality and caused a national reckoning over racial justice and law enforcement’s treatment of Black people.

Floyd’s family agreed to a $27 million settlement from the city of Minneapolis.

Merritt also represents the family of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man in Georgia who was pursued as he was out for a jog and shot to death by two white men in a killing that was caught on videotape.

Lawsuit cites KCPD history

The lawsuit further alleges that since 2005, the police department has failed to train officers on proper use of force and de-escalation techniques, which it argues has resulted in “serious bodily injury and death, particularly against people of color.”

Lawyers cited other use-of-force cases: the 2013 fatal shooting of Ryan Stokes, who was unarmed when an officer shot him during a foot chase near the Power & Light District; the 2019 arrest of Breona Hill, which led to felony assault charges against the officers accused of “slamming her face” against concrete; and the 2020 fatal shooting of Donnie Sanders, who was also unarmed.

They also pointed to the 2013 shooting of Philippe Lora, who was left partly paralyzed after officers shot him 20 times, according to his attorney. Police paid $4.8 million in that case in one of the largest settlements in the department’s history.

Attorneys for Lamb’s children contend the police department’s training emphasizes an “us-against them” mentality and a desire to “take care of fellow officers over the just and fair enforcement of the law.”

That mentality, they said, was displayed in a 2019 PowerPoint training on fatal police shootings. It tells officers not to feel guilty about killing citizens because they are “the winner in a competition in which the winning prize is their life,” the lawsuit contends.

That presentation, as previously reported by The Star, also showed officers images that depicted media coverage of police shootings as unfair and unreasonable.

The lawsuit also took aim at police department policy. Police, for example, refuse to investigate excessive force complaints that are made more than 90 days after an incident, the lawsuit contends.

“This means that misconduct goes unreviewed if the victim takes more than three months to recover from their injuries, to work up the courage to file a complaint, or simply to learn about the complaint process,” the lawsuit alleges.

Also representing Lamb’s family are top lawyers with the McEldrew Young law firm in Philadelphia, which is known for its work on behalf of clients who bring excessive force and civil rights cases against law enforcement.

One of the firm’s partners, John Coyle, was among the attorneys who represented the family of Antwon Rose, a Black teenager killed by police in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Litigators with Reed Smith, a international law firm based in Pittsburgh, are also part of the legal team representing Lamb’s family.