The Public Masters in Kansas City Allow Amaree’ya Henderson's Family to View Body Camera of Fatal Police Shooting of Black Man. But the public's Video will Remain Secret from Public, Until They Say So

Imagine if police departments across the nation sought funding for a new program described as follows:

"We propose a video surveillance program targeted toward heavily patrolled low-income neighborhoods of color in order to gather evidence of crimes such as drug possession, vandalism, and resisting arrest. We will primarily use this evidence to prosecute criminal cases against civilians - not police officers - withholding it from defendants to encourage pleas, and allowing access only to those who take the risk of going to trial. The public and the media will rarely, if ever, gain access to these videos, and we will release them at our unilateral discretion; we will, of course, own and control all the footage."

If this were the avowed purpose and description of a program, few would support it. Yet this is precisely how most police body camera programs are currently run. [MORE PDF]

From [HERE] The family is entitled to see the video under Kansas law, even if there are no plans to release it publicly or identify the officer involved in the April 26 fatal shooting of Amaree’ya Henderson.

Kansas City, Kansas, police are allowing family members to view body camera footage after an officer killed a Black man during a traffic stop.

The family is entitled to see the video under Kansas state law, even if there are no plans to release it publicly or identify the officer involved in the fatal shooting of Amaree’ya Henderson on April 26, according to KCTV5 News.

According to Yahoo! News, which cited The Kansas City Star, Pauletta Johnson claimed police stopped her son and his girlfriend, a passenger, while they were delivering food in the area.

Attorneys for his family claimed that despite Henderson’s repeated requests, the officer never gave a reason for the stop, according to KCTV5.

Henderson’s girlfriend eventually FaceTimed Johnson because he was afraid. Yahoo! News reported the grieving mother claimed she was on the phone when she heard the gunshots, and she rushed to the scene by tracking their phones.

“They killed my baby,” Johnson said, Yahoo! News reported. “My only son.”

Kansas City officer Donna Drake said the police officer involved was somehow slightly injured and taken to the hospital.

Johnson along with the family’s attorneys, are calling for more transparency as they continue to question how what seemed to be a routine traffic stop resulted in a deadly shooting.

​​The Wyandotte County district attorney’s office — which will determine whether the use of force complied with Kansas law — received the case after it was investigated by police in Kansas City, Missouri. The two cities have followed that protocol for shootings involving officers since late last year, according to the Yahoo! report.