KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas City, Missouri, police officer who shot and killed Cameron Lamb in December 2019 did not appear in court Tuesday as the Court of Appeals for Western Missouri heard arguments in an appeal of his conviction for the deadly shooting.
Former KCPD Det. Eric DeValkenaere, who spent more than 20 years on the police force and worked as an undercover detective at the time of the shooting, was convicted nearly two years ago of second-degree involuntary manslaughter and armed criminal action after a judge ruled he illegally entered the property in the 4100 block of College Avenue before shooting Lamb from behind as he sat in a truck he was backing into a subterranean garage behind the house where he lived.
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DeValkenaere’s appellate attorney, Jonathan Laurans, and, in an unusual move, Missouri Assistant Attorney General Shaun Mackelprang argued for overturning the conviction, while Assistant Jackson County Prosecuting Attorney Ben Cox defended the conviction during a court hearing before a three-judge panel — Judges Janet Sutton, Thomas N. Chapman and W. Douglas Thomson — on Tuesday in downtown KCMO.
The former KCPD officer’s attorneys tried to paint the deadly backyard encounter as a traffic stop gone awry despite the fact no traffic officers ever actually attempted to stop Lamb.
Laurans argued that the trial judge, Jackson County Circuit Court J. Dale Youngs, who oversaw the bench trial and issued the verdict, erred in deciding there was no probable cause to arrest Lamb, noting that officers witnessed traffic infractions prior to the deadly encounter at his home.
Chapman pointed out that DeValkenaere and his partner, fellow undercover officer Troy Schwalm, acknowledged that they were not engaged in an active pursuit.
Instead, a KCPD helicopter was following Lamb’s vehicle.
But Laurans ignored the fact KCPD policy forbids the helicopter alone from pursuing and bars undercover officers from engaging in a pursuit.
KCPD also does not engage in high-speed chases absent evidence of suspicion of a non-traffic felony.
“It doesn’t appear that he’s in any hurry,” Thomson, the court's presiding judge, said. “He’s not concerned that there may be some pursuit. I don’t see by his actions that there’s any concern about a pursuit in progress.”
Nonetheless, and still contending there was an active pursuit, his attorneys tried to claim his actions were justified even though his trial attorneys explicitly did not raise the hot pursuit doctrine at trial.
Mackelprang later partially walked back his pursuit argument, telling the appeals panel that he’d “never argued there was hot pursuit.”
Instead, Mackelprang now said, “the officers believed there was a public safety issue” and they had reasonable suspicion to make a traffic stop, even though Lamb’s vehicle was now on private property.
“This man did not commit any crime,” Laurans said in summation. “He deserves this court’s reversal.”
Mackelprang also argued the officers entering the property with guns drawn did not make them the initial aggressors, but the three-judge panel pushed back on some of those claims citing the trial record.
Cox reminded the court that the standard of review in an appeals case requires the court to view the facts in the most-favorable light of the verdict, which, in this case, was to convict DeValkenaere
“When there’s conflicting testimony, under our lens of review, when it’s conflicting we go with the evidence that supports the verdict,” Chapman said.
Prosecutors reiterated that there were questions about whether Lamb did, in fact, have a gun and whether the officers violated his Fourth Amendment rights in entering the property in the first place.
DeValkenaere’s attorneys leaned heavily on a statement by the trial court judge at sentencing that his testimony was credible, but prosecutors pointed out that Youngs' statement related specifically to his belief that he was defending Schwalm.
Cox pointed out that while Youngs said that part of his testimony was credible, DeValkenaere's actions were still unreasonable under the law.
Youngs found that DeValkenaere acted negligently in entering the property with no warrant, no probable cause and no permission before he shot Lamb to death.
“The Appellant (DeValkenaere) was criminally negligent that day, and Cameron Lamb died as a result,” Cox said in summation. "Ever since that day, Appellate's version of the facts and his legal justifications have been changing. But neither the true facts nor the applicable law has changed: Appellant unreasonably entered that property; he did so unlawfully; he unreasonably knocked down the victim's fence; he unreasonably drew his weapon; he unreasonably escalated a situation that had been previously de-escalated; he shot an unarmed man in his home."
The three-judge panel will be tasked with deciding whether to uphold DeValkenaere’s conviction or overturn it, which may take a month or more.
"Today we asked the Court to uphold the rule of law — just as we have in countless other cases," Jackson County Prosecuting Attorney Jean Peters Baker said in a statement after the hearing. "We will await respectfully the Court’s decision."
A dozen protesters greeted those arriving at court with chants and signs at the corner of East 13th and Oak streets, rallying in support of Lamb and his family — including his mother, Laurie Bey, and stepfather Aqil Bey, who were in court along with several other family members.
“We are going to let them play it out in the courtroom," Aqil Bey said as the family left court. "… The wheels of justice are still turning."
The family didn't make a formal statement. Although, the family's attorney, David Smith, did comment on the nature of the appeal.
“Thirty-five years I’ve been doing this, I’ve never seen the attorney general’s office take the position of the defendant in a conviction, trying to get the conviction overturned. Absolutely bizarre," Smith said.
DeValkenaere was convicted of second-degree involuntary manslaughter and armed criminal action in November 2021 in the Dec. 3, 2019, fatal shooting of Lamb.
Youngs delivered the verdict after a four-day bench trial and later sentenced DeValkenaere to six years in prison, though he allowed the former KCPD detective to remain free on an appeal bond.
Even Youngs acknowledged that it was an unprecedented decision, but one he believed was supported by law.
DeValkenaere’s legal team filed a notice of intent to appeal in March 2022, shortly after the sentencing.
DeValkenaere’s appellate attorney, Jonathan Laurans, filed the formal appeal on Oct. 27, 2022, but the Missouri Attorney General’s Office slow-walked its response.
Andrew Bailey took over as the state’s attorney general in January and his office requested a half-dozen extensions before a judge finally ordered the state to file a response.
Bailey’s office took the extraordinary step of asking the Missouri Court of Appeals for the Western District to overturn DeValkenaere’s conviction rather than arguing in support of the conviction, which was obtained by the Jackson County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.
Jean Peters Baker’s office filed an amicus brief, seeking permission to intervene and defend its conviction. That motion was granted, setting the change for Tuesday’s court hearing in downtown KCMO.
KSHB 41 anchor/reporter Bryant Maddrick contributed to this report.
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