KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kevin Strickland, who served more than 40 years in Missouri prisons for a crime that he did not commit, has filed a civil lawsuit against the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners and officers within the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Jackson County Circuit Court, alleges the BOPC and officers were reckless in their investigation of an April 1978 home invasion and murder in which they identified Strickland as the assailant.
Strickland would spend the next four decades behind bars before a judge freed him from prison under a Missouri law allowing prosecutors to review previous cases.
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The lawsuit contains 10 counts, including deprivation of liberty without due process of law and denial of a fair trial by fabricating evidence, malicious prosecution, civil rights conspiracy, failure to intervene, municipal liability claim, malicious prosecution under Missouri law, intentional infliction of emotional distress, abuse of process and civil conspiracy, among others.
Named in the lawsuit are members of the Board of Police Commissioners, including Mark Tolbert, Cathy Dean, Dawn Cramer, Thomas Whittaker and Kansas City, Missouri, Mayor Quinton Lucas, in his capacity as a member of the board.
Also named are officers Larry Gilmer, Gary Parker, David Barton, Donald Hanton and William Schweitzer.
"We generally do not comment on pending litigation to ensure fairness to all parties involved," a spokesperson with the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department said in an email.
The lawsuit, which seeks a jury trial, asks the court to award compensatory and punitive damages to Strickland and pre and post judgment interest and recovery of plaintiff’s costs and attorneys fees.
KSHB 41 reporter Sarah Plake spoke to Strickland on Wednesday as he was boarding a flight to Phoenix.
“It’s time that they pay me what is duly owed,” Strickland said.
Under Missouri law, Strickland was not entitled to compensation from the state. The law states that only defendants cleared through DNA evidence are eligible for remuneration.
A GoFundMe campaign established in the wake of Strickland’s exoneration generated more than $250,000.
Strickland was freed in November 2021 after serving 43 years in jail in connection to a 1978 triple murder.
The conviction rested heavily on the eyewitness testimony of the lone survivor of the crime, Cynthia Douglas.
In the evidentiary hearing to set him free, Strickland’s legal team called multiple witnesses to the stand, many of whom were Douglas’ family and friends.
Each recalled times when Douglas told them she’d chosen the wrong man in 1978.
Douglas even made an effort in February 2009 to start the process to free Strickland with the following email to the Midwest Innocence Project:
“I am seeking info on how to help someone that was wrongfully accused, this incident happened back in 1978, I was the only eyewitness and things were not clear back then, but now I know more and would like to help this person if I can.”
She died in 2015 after a prolonged illness before she could formally recant her testimony.
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