Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily columnist Jack Cashill has long had a Colin Flaherty streak, indulging his race-baiting tendencies by defending white people who kill black people (i.e., George Zimmerman and Derek Chauvin). He edged even further in that direction in his Oct. 18 column about an incident in his hometown of Kansas City:
As the media made the public aware – the Kansas City Star relentlessly so – veteran Kansas City police officer Eric DeValkenaere did not shoot and kill an ordinary citizen. He shot a "black man."
It did not matter that DeValkenaere had no known history of racism in his 20-plus year career, or that he was, in the words of one veteran colleague with whom I spoke, "courteous, professional, a hard worker who showed everyone respect and operated by the book."
The "white KC cop" shot a "black man," and for the media, that negated all other variables. Unfortunately, that dynamic seems to have affected the courts as well.
Cashill then recounted alleged offenses by the victim, Cameron Lamb, including a claim of reckless driving earlier in the day. We pick up Cashill's biased version of events as DeValkenaere and his partner, Troy Schwalm, went to Lamb's house in an unmarked vehicle:
After putting on his vest, DeValkenaere followed Schwalm to the address provided by Valentine. He wanted to assure that Schwalm "was not there by himself." Both parked in front.
Schwalm took the lead, walking up the driveway with gun in "low ready" position. DeValkenaere did the same on the far side of the house. Both "believed [the incident] was something more serious than a traffic violation."
Valentine meanwhile reported that the truck was backing into a garage below the house, presumably to duck the helicopter. At the beginning of the incident, Lamb's truck was parked on the street.
Standing at the top of the ramp leading into the garage, Schwalm ordered Lamb to put the truck in park, telling him that it wasn't going to fit in the garage in any case.
Coming around from the far side of the house, DeValkenaere was positioned on the retaining wall above the truck. He had a much clearer view of Lamb than did Schwalm.
Ignoring commands to stop, Lamb continued to back up. DeValkenaere claims he saw Lamb holding a pistol between his legs with his left hand. "He's got a gun, he's got a gun," he shouted.
Not sensing an immediate threat, DeValkenaere refrained from shooting until he saw Lamb bring the gun "up and around the left-hand side of the steering wheel."
"I can't let this happen," DeValkenaere thought, meaning that he couldn't let Lamb shoot Schwalm who was in the more vulnerable position. Fearing the worst, DeValkenaere shot and killed Lamb.
DeValkenaere never entered the garage or touched Lamb. He yielded the shooting scene to the arriving officers. Tactical officer Eurik Hunt testified that he saw the gun "just below … the driver's door of the vehicle just below where an arm was hanging out from the door."
You will not be surprised to learn that Cashill is omitting certain information in order to forward his narrative. In upholding DeValkenaere's involuntary manslaughter conviction, an appeals court found:
- DeValkenaere and Schwalm did not have permission or a warrant to enter Lamb's property.
- Lamb did not have a gun in his hand at the time DeValkenaere killed him (it was apparently a phone), and Schwalm never saw a gun. Thus, Lamb was not a threat to them.
- DeValkenaere lied to authorities about a "lady in pink" telling him that Lamb had guns.
Like a good conspiracy theorist, Cashill ignores inconvenient facts. Instead, he played the race card against the judge that presidend over the trial that originally convicted DeValkenaere:
In his ruling, Youngs compared DeValkenaere to Chauvin – favorably. But that he made the comparison at all suggested that a white officer killing a black perp deserved its own special criminal classification.
As Youngs saw things, "One issue of law … countermanded every other factual issue in the case," namely "whether or not Sergeant Schwalm and Detective DeValkenaere were lawfully present on the premises when they engaged Cameron Lamb."
Unless the state of Missouri intervenes, DeValkenaere will have six years to study up on the various interpretations of the Fourth Amendment under the heading, "white cop/black perp."
Again, DeValkenaere and Schwalm were not lawfully present on Lamb's property. But Cashill has a race-baiting narrative to peddle, and facts just get in the way.
Cashill continued to defend Devalkenaere and Chauvin in his Oct. 25 column:
"Murder and involuntary manslaughter arising from criminal negligence are two different things," said Missouri Circuit Court Judge J. Dale Youngs in handing Kansas City police officer Eric Devalkenaere a six-year prison sentence.
"They are different legal concepts. They are different things. Eric Devalkenaere is not Derek Chauvin who murdered George Floyd."
As it turns out Derek Chauvin is not the Derek Chauvin who murdered George Floyd for the simple reason that George Floyd wasn't murdered.
Cashill went on to claim that "So dubious was the evidence against Devalkenaere that Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey wrote a convincing appeal to have the verdict overturned. Even more convincing is the appeal made by Devalkenaere's father, Albert, a retired KCPD master detective." Cashill didn't explain what, exactly, was so "convincing" about either statement, given the inherent bias in their appeals: Bailey is a highly partisan right-wing AG, while Albert Devalkenaere is the perp's dad and cannot possibly be objective; indeed, he repeated the false claim that Lamb "dr[e]w a gun as the police were approaching him" and echoed Cashill's race-baiting narrative that prosecutors "wanted to gain notoriety for prosecuting a white police officer in the death of black man."
