KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Prosecutors are recommending that a former Kansas City police detective be sentenced to nine years in prison for the shooting death of a Black man in 2019.
Eric DeValkenaere, 43, is scheduled to be sentenced Friday in the death of Cameron Lamb. DeValkenaere, who is white, was convicted in November of second-degree involuntary manslaughter in the shooting on Dec. 3, 2019.
Lamb, 26, was shot as he backed his pickup truck into a garage at his home.
In an 11-page sentencing memorandum, prosecutors asked Jackson County Circuit Court Presiding Judge J. Dale Youngs to sentence DeValkenaere to four years for manslaughter and nine years for armed criminal action, with the sentences to run concurrently, The Kansas City Star reported Tuesday.
Youngs has already ruled that DeValkenaere will remain free after the sentencing while he appeals his conviction.
In a sentencing memorandum, defense attorney Dawn Parsons asked for leniency, arguing that DeValkenaere would be especially susceptible to prison violence because of his nearly two decades in law enforcement.
DeValkenaere and detective Troy Schwalm were not in uniform when they went into Lamb's back yard after receiving a report of a pickup chasing a car. DeValkenaere said he fired after Lamb pointed a gun at Schwalm.
Prosecutors alleged during the trial in November that a gun found near Lamb's truck was planted.
When he convicted DeValkenaere, Youngs said the officers violated Lamb's constitutional rights because they had no probable cause to believe he had committed a crime, had no warrant for Lamb's arrest and had no search warrant or consent to be on the property. He did not address the allegations that evidence had been planted.
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