Former leader with Kansas City anti-violence organization pleads guilty to assault
A former leader with a Kansas City program aimed at reducing violence has pleaded guilty to domestic assault.
Rev. Darren D. Faulkner, 55, was charged in January 2023 with domestic assault in Clay County. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count last week and was sentenced to one year of probation, court records show.
Faulkner had been the program manager for KC Common Good and was involved with the organization’s KC 360 program, an anti-violence initiative that launched in 2022.
He left the organization earlier this year.
He declined to comment when reached by phone on Thursday.
A report from the North Kansas City Police Department said that Faulkner attempted to choke a woman and then struck her during a fight on Dec. 14, 2021.
Officers were called after the two began fighting about infidelity, the report said. After the woman grabbed his cell phone and he attempted to get it back, he allegedly wrapped his right arm around the woman’s neck and squeezed. She temporarily lost consciousness. Then he allegedly hit her in the forehead and mouth.
Both of them called 911, the report said. An officer observed two small cuts on the woman’s forehead, a small abrasion on the inside of her lower lip, three small marks on the inside of her left bicep and saw that her neck was red. The woman collapsed and briefly lost consciousness when police interviewed her.
Faulkner told police there had been a struggle, but his hands were only on his cell phone to get it back from her. He also said his watch may have scratched her head and that she left scratch marks on his arm when she tried to grab his phone.
The report said the woman told police, “they both have a previous history of physical arguments due to Faulkner having intimate relationships with other women and anger issues.”
An incident report from the Kansas City Police Department also lists Faulkner and a woman as being involved in a March 29 disturbance. Though much of the report is redacted, it said the two had a verbal argument. The woman was charged with domestic assault in municipal court, but that case was dismissed in late August, records show.
Faulkner had a highly visible role as program manager with KC 360, appearing in news stories this year with outlets including FOX4, KMBC and KCUR.
He also has a ministry and streams sermons on YouTube.
Faulkner previously served as the director of community engagement for KC NoVA, another crime reduction effort that ended in 2019, and was executive director and CEO for the Kansas City Freedom Schools Initiative.
