Kansas cannot allow another death at the hand of authorities to go without notice and action – Kansas Reflector

The Kansas Reflector welcomes opinion items from writers who share our objective of widening the dialog about how public insurance policies have an effect on the day-to-day lives of individuals all through our state. Jeromiah Taylor is a Wichita-based author merging contemplative Christianity with direct motion.

Black lives aren’t symbols. Black lives aren’t theoretical. And but, each few years the demise of a Black particular person rises above anonymity to turn out to be a touchstone for nationwide anxieties.

In subsequent months, protests seize metro areas, hashtags saturate social media platforms and empty efficiency plagues nationwide politics. But after the preliminary outrage fades, because the quiet of complacency settles as soon as extra over the land, it seems that but once more nothing modified.

CJ Lofton was not an thought, not a poster baby. He isn’t a martyr or the icon of a motion. He was a human being. A human being whose life ended by the hands of public staff. 

One thing should change.

On the coronary heart of Lofton’s demise lies Kansas’s untenable “stand your floor” statute. The regulation decrees that if an individual “fairly believes” lethal drive is important to stop “imminent demise or nice bodily hurt” to themselves or one other they don’t seem to be obligated to retreat and are exempted from civil and prison costs within the occasion of the attacker’s demise.

Sedgwick County District Lawyer Marc Bennet cited the stand your floor statute in his determination to not prosecute the Sedgwick County Juvenile Consumption and Evaluation Heart staff who restrained Lofton for greater than half-hour whereas inclined. That resulted in what Sedgwick County chief medical expert Timothy Gorrill dominated Lofton’s murder. In line with Bennet, no prosecution would maintain up in court docket because of the statute.

This ruling is one in all a number of latest choices in Kansas in opposition to prosecution of authorities. In 2018, Johnston County District Lawyer Steve Howe cited stand your floor in his ruling in opposition to prosecuting the Overland Park police officer who fatally shot 17-year-old John Albers whereas he backed out of his driveway. Police responded to a name expressing concern that Albers was suicidal. In 2021, Bennet dominated in opposition to prosecuting a sheriff’s officer who killed 51-year-old Debra Arbuckle in 2019 whereas she evaded police. Arbuckle’s expired license plate initiated the pursuit.

Following the general public outrage at Lofton’s demise, Gov. Laura Kelly, the Sedgwick County Fee and Wichita Mayor Brandon Whipple dedicated themselves to investigating the extent to which foster care and juvenile consumption procedures have been adopted in Lofton’s case and contemplating changes to procedures.

This narrowing of scope to the procedural operate of state methods is a derailing tactic. Whereas I affirm the significance of defending youths within the system, Lofton’s standing as a foster baby was incidental to his demise. It doesn’t matter why the police are known as. What issues is that every one too typically, when they’re, anyone dies needlessly with no penalties.

The important coverage situation of Lofton’s tragic demise is the close to impossibility of prosecuting regulation enforcement throughout the confines of the stand your floor statute.

The few voices calling for a revisit of the statute are largely Republican lawmakers, a lot of whom have been concerned in drafting the unique measure. Home Speaker Ron Ryckman indicated a Home committee designed to look at the affect of the statute was a precedence of the legislative session. Nevertheless, no motion occurred on the phrasing or execution of the statute.

The very fact stays that Kansas’s stand your floor coverage is an untenable skirting of primary civil rights. At its core, the statute gives a authorized approach for regulation enforcement to bypass due course of. 

Each group member deserves entry to the total extent of the regulation to defend themselves in opposition to prison or civil costs. Dying must not ever preclude justice. As evidenced by the cited invocations of stand your floor, even group members who have been fairly actually fleeing their floor are legally executed with out due course of, leaving their survivors and advocates and not using a authorized avenue to prosecute the deceased’s killers.

Conceptually, stand your floor depends on a blatant desire for the expertise, perspective, and claims of authorities. To “imagine” oneself threatened, no matter any documented circumstances, can’t be a reputable protection in opposition to inflicting bodily hurt. It’s not a reputable protection for 4 adults to say concern of demise or harm by the hands of an unarmed, restrained, 17-year-old with a BMI of 19.4.

If not repealed, Kansas’s stand your floor regulation have to be overhauled. A transparent and measurable standards for “affordable perception” and “imminent demise or nice bodily hurt” have to be outlined, legislated and enforced. Furthermore, no statute should preclude civil or prison costs within the occasion of a human demise. When somebody is killed, the sufferer’s survivors should have entry to each out there avenue of justice, regardless of the circumstances of demise.

Till then, the Kansas stand your floor statute features as a state-sanctioned fail-safe to guard those that really feel threatened by civilians.

I entreat Kansans to not let Lofton turn out to be simply one other hashtag, simply one other information cycle, the topic of one other temporary outrage. Lofton is misplaced alongside numerous others. Our ethical crucial consists of stopping the lack of any extra human beings by the hands of regulation enforcement.

By means of its opinion part, the Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who find themselves affected by public insurance policies or excluded from public debate. Discover data, together with how you can submit your personal commentary, right here.