Eric DeValkenaere, who has been in prison for a year and two months, could be released by Christmas. The family of 26-year-old Black man Cameron Lamb, whom DeValkenaere killed, has long feared that Gov. Mike Parson would free the former police detective.
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson late Friday commuted the sentence of former Kansas City Police Detective Eric DeValkenaere, fulfilling his family’s many requests for his release.
Parson, who has had his share of controversial pardons, announced the decision among a list of 16 pardons and eight other commutations.
The action was long feared by the family of Cameron Lamb, the 26-year-old Black man DeValkenaere killed — as well as Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker, who won the conviction.
Baker, who first warned the governor away from the pardon in June 2023, was often asked about the possibility. On December 16, she told KCUR that any such action would send the message that some people receive special justice.
“Those decisions should never be made by government officials without speaking to victims’ families and frankly, the Kansas City community,” Baker said. “And to not do that — I’m going to use a word — is cowardice.”
Melesa Johnson, who was elected Jackson County prosecutor in November, said before the commutation that a DeValkenaere pardon would be “frustrating” and “unfortunate.”
Johnson said the governor has broad pardoning powers, and said perhaps any future people in that job would consider freedom for other people, like Kevin Strickland, who spent four decades in prison for a 1978 triple murder he says he did not commit and . He was released in late 2021.
Baker’s office fought hard for Strickland’s release, but Parson refused to pardon him, saying in 2021 that Strickland’s clemency application was not a priority amid a large backlog.
“I just would ask that the next administration, the next time a Kevin Strickland comes along, let’s try using our pardoning power and considering our pardoning power there instead of putting (the prosecutor’s office) through a knock-out-drag-out fight to exonerate a man that has literally given his entire life for a crime he didn’t commit,” Johnson said.
This is not Parson’s first high-profile, controversial offer of clemency. On March 1, Parson commuted the sentence of former Kansas City Chiefs assistant coach Britt Reid, son of head coach Andy Reid. The younger Reid was convicted of driving while intoxicated and causing a crash that severely injured a 5-year-old girl in February 2021.
In July 2021, Parson, a Republican, pardoned a St. Louis couple who had brandished weapons at Black Lives Matter activists in their upscale neighborhood. Mark McCloskey and Patricia McCloskey, both Republicans, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges and were fined. They said they were defending themselves from a violent mob in June 2020 by pointing an AR-style rifle and a pistol at demonstrators marching to the mayor’s home.
Parson has pardoned more than 600 people in the past three years, according to state public records, which is more than any Missouri governor since the 1940s.