MORE² 2-22-22 and police reform

Lora McDonald and Ricee Cade disuss their work with MORE², the Kansas

City Metro Organization for Racial and Economic Equality, pronounced

“MORE-squared”.  Lora is their Executive Director.  Ricee focuses on

police reform.

They are planning a major event for February 22, billed as “2-22-22”.

They discuss that event and their police reform work including efforts

to obtain local control of the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department.

Currently, the KCMO Board of Police Commissioners is appointed by the

Governor.  Mayor Quintin Lucas is the only locally elected member of the

board.  MORE² says that KCMO is the only city in the US whose police

department is not locally controlled.  They have also been collected

data in instances that seem to involve excessive use of force by law

enforcement in the greater Kansas City area.  They helped raise the

profile of African American Cameron Lamb, who was shot and killed by

Kansas City police detective Eric DeValkenaere in 2019.  Lamb was

backing his vehicle into his garage behind his house, away from

DeValkenaere, who had ran onto DeValkenaere’s property without a warrant

just prior to the shooting.  In 2020-11-19 DeValkenaere was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Lamb.

MORE² helped prepare a letter to Attorney General Garland requesting a Civil Rights investigation of the Kansas City, Missouri, police department.  That letter, sent 2021-07-23, documented 18 cases of abuse of power by KCMO police in the past 8 years in situations that did NOT involve any real threat to the officers or others.  That letter included Mr. Lamb and 7 others killed by police.  Of the remaining 10, nine were brutally beaten to the point that many are permanently disabled.  One was a 15-year old, who spent three weeks in the county jail before a police officer decided he was not guilty and ordered his release.  That letter was signed by the leaders of five different civil rights organizations in KCMO as a consortium called the Urban Council.

MORE² is inviting concerned citizens to sign a petition supporting that call for an investigation;  see more2.org/doj.

Ricee Cade is compiling documentation of similar abuses of power by the KCK police.  This includes collecting stories from, for example, women who said they were repeatedly raped by Kansas City Police officer Roger Golubski, at least one of whom has two sons who are still incarcerated.

If you might like to help with that, you can contact her at [email protected].

If you’d like to register for their 2-22-22 event, you can do so at http://more2.org/publicmeeting/.

You can also listen to the podcast of an interview with Lora McDonald, Ricee Cade, and Cautia Wadood from last Oct. 5 at “https://kkfi.org/program-episodes/more2-on-police-reform-in-kcmo-and-kck/“.