NAACP president: Parson pardon for killer ex-KCPD officer would be Missouri injustice | Opinion

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson is apparently planning to pardon Eric DeValkenaere, who shot and killed Cameron Lamb. It is a critical mistake for a former police officer. A pardon in this case is not standing with the rule of law. We have seen this before when Parson pardoned the Mark and Patricia McCloskey after they waved guns at peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters simply walking in their neighborhood. Now, Parson wants to pardon DeValkenaere on the eve of Juneteenth.

DeValkenaere callously shot Lamb (unarmed Black man) in Lamb’s driveway. During his trial, prosecutors alleged that members of the Kansas City Police Department colluded to plant evidence and prevented access to medical care for Lamb after he was shot — and none of those involved are facing charges for that potential conspiracy. It is a sad state of affairs in Missouri when a law enforcement official plants a gun and shoots a person, gets convicted and past sheriff Parson pardons the killer officer. This is Parson’s Juneteenth message.

Parson continues to disregard calls for justice, including the pleas of innocent individuals like Marcellus Williams, who remains on death row for a crime he did not commit, while the families of Black victims like Tory Sanders, Justin King and Deronte Martin will never see a person charged with their murder, let alone convicted by fair-minded prosecutors such as Jackson County’s Jean Peters Baker. Our governor is striking a wedge between the Black community and state government. Missouri is killing fairness.

The Missouri NAACP’s travel advisory — the first one issued in the U.S. by the NAACP, in response to the state’s legalization of discrimination in 2017 — continues to be renewed. If you are Black and in Missouri, you are at risk — from a justice system that does not protect Black lives, from a governor who pardons the killers of Black people, from a medical system that provides developing nation-level medical care or refuses care to Black patients in hospital emergency rooms.

If you are white, you have a much greater chance of receiving a pardon or finding justice within Missouri’s flawed, inequitable justice system.

If white police officers are not held accountable for intentionally killing Black Missourians, and if they can manipulate evidence to fabricate crimes or falsely claim self-defense, then it is open season on Black people. Be advised: If you’re in Missouri and Black, you are on your own..

The NAACP is asking that the U.S. Department of Justice not only to investigate the Kansas City Police Department’s involvement in this incident, but also to examine Parson’s involvement in the pardon process. We need to know how white criminals in Missouri repeatedly receive pardons when their murder victims are Black. This systemic injustice disproportionately burdens Black communities, exacerbating the plight of Black victims’ families statewide. It is imperative that have a clear and public record on this safety issue.

I implore you to join me in contacting the governor and demanding that there be no pardon for Eric DeValkenaere. Call him at 573-751-3222 and tell him. Tell him that you want the rule of law to prevail, and you are afraid of a pardon causing disturbances of the peace, economic disruptions and other harm. I am afraid of that, too, if such a pardon is granted — that there will be no peace, and we have seen that before too.

The NAACP of Missouri calls for no pardon and preservation of the peace even if Mike Parson won’t fix our state’s Jim Crow justice system.

Nimrod Chapel Jr. is president of the Missouri NAACP.