Nearly a year after the shooting of Donnie Sanders, Jackson County prosecutor Jean Peters Baker claims there is insufficient evidence to convict the officer involved.
What We Know:
- Sanders, a 47-year-old unarmed Black man, was shot and killed by a Kansas City police officer on March 12, 2020. That night, Sanders was holding a cell phone. One witness claims that he held the phone up toward the officer as if it was a gun.
- The Kansas City Star detailed that the dashcam footage shows the policeman following Sanders into an alley and turning on his sirens and lights. After, the officer begins to chase Sanders off camera and on foot, and all that can be heard is screams and a gunshot.
- After this altercation, the Kansas City Police Department began an investigation. The department reviewed the file and sent it to Baker in fall 2020. She did not review it immediately, though. Baker asked the Missouri State Highway Patrol to review it before she did.
“As a matter of public policy, I believe that police agencies can no longer review incidents allegedly committed by its own officers. That was why we called the Highway Patrol. Every officer-involved incident must be investigated by outside, independent detectives,” she noted in a statement.
- The prosecutor wanted all the evidence collected, analyzed, and reported. For example, she attempted to enhance the quality of sound in the audio recordings from March 12. She also spoke with two witnesses who only saw what happened before and after the shooting.
- Baker also asked two other district attorney offices with highly developed force teams to independently review the case. Unfortunately, there was not enough information to charge the officer involved. The Kansas City Police Department acknowledged that they gave the prosecutor all their evidence.
Sanders’s family said they are devastated by the decision not to file criminal charges; they claim that it is an act of injustice.
