KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas City police officer who shot an unarmed man nearly one year ago will not be charged, the Jackson County prosecutor’s office announced Monday.
Donnie Sanders, 47, was fatally shot by an officer on March 12, 2020, near Prospect and Wabash avenues.
Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said there was insufficient evidence to file charges against the unnamed officer.
The officer told investigators that Sanders help up his hand toward him as if he had a firearm, Baker said.
The Kansas City Police Department completed its investigation in the fall of 2020 and gave the file to the prosecutor’s office. Instead of beginning its review immediately, the prosecutor’s office handed the case over to Missouri State Highway Patrol, considered an outside agency.
“We’ve made clear whenever we needed to that the Police Department shouldn’t investigate itself, especially in fatal officer-involved shootings,” Michael Mansur, a spokesman for the Jackson County prosecutor’s office, said in October. “So when they submitted this case to us, we immediately asked highway patrol to look at this investigation and review it.”
Sgt. Andy Bell, a spokesman for the Missouri Highway Patrol, confirmed in October that his agency was asked to look into the case. Highway patrol completed its investigation and handed the file back to the prosecutor’s office for review.
Sanders was killed on March 12 by an officer who believed he was armed. The day after his death, the Kansas City Police Department announced Sanders was not carrying a weapon.
Highway patrol began investigating all shootings, both fatal and nonfatal, by members of the Kansas City Police Department on June 13, when an officer shot and killed William Slyter.
In a news release that day, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said highway patrol would be investigating the shooting because of policies he asked the Board of Police Commissioners to enact. The Police Department agreed to call in an outside agency.
Sanders’ family has said he was driving from his girlfriend’s house near Linwood Boulevard and Chestnut Avenue to his sister’s house on 57th Street and Indiana Avenue when he encountered police.
According to the police department, an officer attempted to pull Sanders over at about 11:15 p.m. at 51st Street and Prospect Avenue.
The car came to a stop in an alley and Sanders got out of the vehicle and ran, police said.
He then turned toward an officer near 52nd Street and raised his arms “as though he had a weapon,” police said at the time. Sanders was told to drop the weapon — which police later determined he was not carrying.
An officer shot him when he didn’t comply, police said.
Sanders was taken to a nearby hospital, where he died.
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