By Christian Boone
Missouri’s governor has yet to decide whether to pardon a white Kansas City police officer convicted in the 2019 shooting death of a 26-year-old Black man.
But recent comments from Gov. Mike Parson have supporters of former Detective Eric J. DeValkenaere feeling optimistic that the convicted killer may soon be released from prison. And if Parson doesn’t commute the officer’s sentence, the governor’s likely successor, fellow Republican Lt. Gov. Matt Kehoe, vows he will. Polls show Kehoe with a double-digit lead over his Democratic opponent.
“There’s not a week that goes by that somebody’s not reaching out to me about that issue, and we’re going to see what happens here before long. I’ll leave it at that,” Parson recently said in an interview with KCMO Talk Radio host Pete Mundo. “But you know, I don’t like where he’s at. I’ll just say that.”
DeValkenaere’s legal challenges ran out in March after Missouri’s Supreme Court upheld his conviction in the shooting death of Cameron Lamb.
Lamb was backing his pickup truck down a sloped driveway to his garage in December 2019 when he was confronted by DeValkenaere and his partner. DeValkenaere, who fired the fatal shots nine seconds after Lamb’s arrival, alleged Lamb pointed a handgun at his fellow officer.
But at DeValkenaere’s 2021 trial, prosecutors presented evidence that police planted the gun. DeValkenaere, 45, was found guilty of second-degree involuntary manslaughter and armed criminal action. It marked the first time a Kansas City police officer was convicted for the killing of a Black man.
The Supreme Court’s decision, Lamb’s mother, Laurie Bey, told the Kansas City Star, reaffirmed “that my son’s life mattered” and that DeValkenaere “took an innocent man’s life for no reason at all.”
But closure to the case has been elusive. DeValkenaere’s family filed a clemency request with the governor following the officer’s conviction, and Parson is expected to reveal his decision following the November election.
The state’s Republican leadership, meanwhile, has left little doubt where their sympathies lie.
In a virtually unprecedented move, Missouri’s attorney general, Andrew Bailey, argued in favor of a review of the prosecution, saying the veteran detective’s use of deadly force was reasonable.
And in 2023, Parson told a Kansas City radio station he believed DeValkenaere’s prosecution was politically motivated.
“The one thing that bothered me more than anything about that case was the way the prosecutor handled that in Kansas City,” Parson told 95.7 KCMO Talk. “By the accusations, she was making about guilt or innocence without actually even knowing the facts herself. It was a time when there was a lot of civil unrest, and the problem is you don’t ever want anyone convicted because of the political side of things.”
Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker denied the governor’s accusation, saying in a statement her office was guided by the facts.
Lamb’s family, said Baker, has endured “a dishonest campaign designed to devalue the life of their loved one and malign his character.”
Conflicting Testimony
On Dec. 13, 2019, DeValkenaere and his partner responded to an alleged physical altercation between Lamb and his girlfriend. Lamb was chasing the woman in his red pickup but had returned home after receiving a phone call from his roommate.
DeValkenaere and his partner, dressed in plain clothes and without a warrant, were waiting for him at his Kansas City residence, guns drawn.
The partner was on Lamb’s side of the truck as he backed the car into the basement garage, according to the indictment. They told him to stop, but it’s unclear whether he heard them.
DeValkenaere testified he saw Lamb’s left hand reach for a gun and point it at his partner. He fired four times at Lamb, hitting him twice.
“I remember thinking, ‘No, this can’t happen. I can’t let this happen,” DeValkenaere said.
“You can’t let him shoot Troy?” defense attorney Molly Hastings asked.
“Right,” DeValkenaere replied.
But DeValkenaere’s partner offered a contradictory account. Lamb’s left hand was on the steering wheel, with his fingers spread apart, and had no gun in it when he lifted the hand, the indictment stated.
Investigators said they found a gun on the ground beneath Lamb’s left hand where the truck finally came to rest.
Moreover, Lamb was right-handed, and medical records revealed he did not have full use of his left hand due to a previous injury.
The evidence proved damning. DeValkenaere was sentenced to six years in prison but remained free on bond while appealing his conviction.
The Missouri Court of Appeals upheld the conviction last October, and DeValkenaere was taken into custody. He’s currently serving his sentence at a prison outside of Missouri, according to the state corrections department.
Lamb’s family is urging the governor to let justice run its course.
“Governor Parson, I beg you to let due process run its course and to refrain from pardoning this officer who robbed three beautiful children of their father, for no reason at all,” family spokesman Matthew Moore wrote in a letter to the governor, as reported by the Kansas City Star. “Our community is already suffering from hopelessness and depression, and we are just now starting to turn things around to create life out of death in our community. I beg you to be a part of the solution.”
