Family releases bodycam video of Kansas man's fatal shooting by police
The family of a Kansas man fatally shot by Topeka police in 2022 released body camera videos Friday of the encounter in an effort to dispute the police’s narrative of events.
The family of a Kansas man fatally shot by Topeka police in 2022 released body camera videos Friday of the encounter in an effort to dispute the police’s narrative of events.
The family of Taylor Lowery obtained the footage after a federal magistrate judge ordered the city to relinquish it as part of a wrongful death lawsuit filed in August. Lowery, 33, died at the scene after five officers discharged their weapons 34 times.
“The family has fought for over two years for transparency to expose the false narrative that Taylor was killed because he ran at the police with a knife,” said LaRonna Lassiter Saunders, a civil rights lawyer and an advocate for the family.
Taylor Lowery.Courtesy LaRonna Lassiter Saunders, Esq.Da’Mabrius Duncan, the mother of Lowery’s only child who is serving as an administrator for his estate, accused Topeka police in the lawsuit of neglecting to properly train its officers, including how to de-escalate situations and take steps to prevent the risk of excessive use of force. One of the officers involved in the shooting was in such training, the suit says.
The suit had sought the release of the bodycam videos, which the city refused to do in early 2023, after the Shawnee County District Attorney’s Office announced that there would be no criminal charges in Lowery’s death and that the “use of force applied by each of the five named officers was reasonable and lawful.”
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