KANSAS CITY, Mo. — After faith leaders and activists obtained two videos showing the moments when Kansas City, Missouri, police officers shot and killed Malcolm Johnson, they said they wonder if they would have ever found out what happened.
"When I'm looking at the video, it looks like one officer shot the other officer, then shot the victim twice in the head," Darron Edwards, pastor at United Believers Community Church, said.
He and other faith leaders and activists called a news conference at Concord Fortress of Hope Church on Thursday to talk about the second video of the shooting they received.
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The clerk at the gas station at East 63rd Street and Prospect Avenue, where the incident happened, recorded it on his cell phone.
Edwards and the group said they received the video early Thursday.
And they now are raising questions about what happens roughly 45 seconds into the video, where they said it looks like one officer is pulling her gun out, while she and four other officers try to keep Johnson pinned to the floor.
Then, a gunshot can be heard as the officer appears to take her gun from the holster. Immediately after, another officer cries out – seemingly the officer who was shot in the leg.
Then two more shots are heard, killing Johnson.
"We need to pray for the true veil to be lifted because we've become lethargic,"activist Cheryl Ferguson said. "We have come to the point that we just believe the narrative, and that's why it's so hard for those of us you see fighting here today."
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They questioned the police's narrative that Johnson pulled the gun and he shot the officer in the leg and demanded transparency.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol is overseeing the investigation.
"The fact that [the video] has been released, we can start having the brutally honest conversations," Rev. Randy Fikki, with Unity Southeast Church, said. "See, we talk about partnerships, we talk about finding the truth, but when everything is built on lies, we're never going to have a real partnership."
The faith leaders form Getting to the Heart of the Matter, a group that works with KCPD. They said the partnership will continue but only with those uncomfortable conversations.
The group wants to know if the officers in the video still are working on the street, and if so, the group called for unpaid administrative leave until the investigation is complete.
