KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A motion hearing has been scheduled Tuesday for Eric DeValkenaere, the former Kansas City, Missouri, detective who was convicted of two felonies in the shooting death of Cameron Lamb.
DeValkenaere’s attorneys filed a motion for an appeal bond on Jan. 31, asking Jackson County Circuit Court Presiding Judge J. Dale Youngs to consider allowing him to remain free post-sentencing.
The Jackson County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office filed a motion Feb. 10 to oppose an appeal bond for DeValkenaere, who was convicted Nov. 19 of second-degree manslaughter and armed criminal action for shooting and killing Lamb on Dec. 3, 2019.
The latest motion hearing is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday.
Lamb was backing a truck into a garage behind a residence where he lived in the 4100 block of College Avenue when DeValkenaere shot him to death.
Attorneys for DeValkenaere, who joined KCPD in 1999 and left the department last month, plan to file an appeal after the March sentencing.
During a bench trial last November, Youngs ruled that DeValkenaere violated Lamb’s constitutional rights by entering the property without a warrant and without permission before the fatal encounter.
Youngs said during a Jan. 26 case management conference that it would be unprecedented to grant an appeal bond given the circumstances.
“In almost 13 years of doing this, I have never stayed execution (of a sentence) and I have never ordered an appeal bond post-verdict,” Youngs, who was appointed as a judge in Jackson County in 2009, said during that hearing.
RELATED | Day 1: KCPD detective’s partner testifies at trial
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Lamb’s mother, Laurie Bey, was outspoken in the quest for justice after he was killed, steadfast in her belief that deadly force wasn’t necessary.
A Jackson County grand jury indicted DeValkenaere for killing Lamb in June 2020, a rare occurrence in KCPD history for a police officer to go on trial for an on-duty shooting.
Lamb’s family, including the mothers of Lamb’s three children, have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against DeValkenaere and the KCPD Board of Police Commissioners.
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