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A Kansas City police officer was convicted in the 2019 shooting death of Cameron Lamb. Circuit Court Judge J. Dale Youngs ruled that Detective Eric J. DeValkenaere was not acting in self-defense when he shot Lamb, finding him guilty of involuntary manslaughter and armed criminal action.
Lamb was shot and killed while backing his truck into his garage following a
Youngs said that DeValkenaere and other officers were the aggressors in the situation and that they lacked probable cause that Lamb committed a crime when they followed him onto private property.
"When the defendant followed Sgt. Schwalm into the backyard of 4154 College and engaged Cameron Lamb, ultimately shooting and killing him he did so without considering or being aware of the substantial and unjustifiable risks associated with this conduct, including but not limited to, fact that Sgt. Schwalm and he were unlawfully on the property that they were both escalating a situation that previously had deescalated and that their actions created or exacerbated the risk," Youngs said, according to KCTV5.
The Kansas City Police Department said that DeValkenaere has been suspended without pay and will be fired. He remains free on bond until he is sentenced.
"Today is justice, but there is no real victors in a case like this. I acknowledge that for how people may see this case very divided, and the case apparently was viewed divided in the courtroom itself. I represent the entire city, the entire county," said Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker. "There's a somberness that comes with all verdicts because we all leave the courthouse, someone misses someone around their dining room table. There's another individual that faces punishment for the harm that has been done."