The family of a man of Kansas filmed fatally by the Topeka Police in 2022 launched videos of body cameras on Friday of the meeting in an effort to dispute the narrative of police events.
Taylor Lowery’s family obtained the footage after a federal judge magistrate ordered the city to renounce it as part of a lawsuit for unfair death filed in August. Lowery, 33, died in the place after five officers downloaded their weapons 34 times.
“The family has fought for more than two years for transparency to expose the false narration that Taylor was killed because he ran in the police with a knife,” Laronna Lossiter Saunders, civil rights lawyer and family defender said.
Da’Mabrius Duncan, the mother of Lowery’s son who serves as administrator of his assets, accused the Police of Topeka in the demand to neglect to adequately train his officers, including how to discourage situations and take measures to avoid the risk of excessive force. One of the officers involved in the shooting was in such training, says the demand.
The lawsuit had sought the launch of Bodycam videos, which the city refused to make in early 2023, after the Shawnee County District Office announced that there would be no criminal charges in Lowery’s death and that The “use of the force applied by each of the five officers appointed were reasonable and legal.”
The Kansas open record law allows government agencies to protect the public police images of the public in the midst of investigations. However, an agency can accept allowing certain interested parties, such as a lawyer or family, to observe images and can collect visualization rates.
In December, the American magistrate judge Angel Mitchell failed in favor of the family in his search to obtain the videos, rejecting the city’s argument that a protection order should keep them confidential.
“To the extent that the Bodycam officer’s images are in question, the courts tend to exclude such images from protection orders based on the strong interest of the public in the transparency of public incidents,” Mitchell wrote.
Initially, Saunders could see Bodycam’s footage with Ducan in the weeks after shooting. But the family has wanted its own copy of the videos as part of the discovery process in their suit.
While officials have the right to deny the dissemination of bodycam videos in saying that there is a lack of “public interest”, Mitchell’s ruling is remarkable because he forced a local government to deliver said video to a family, Max Kautsch said , a lawyer of the first amendment. In Lawrence, Kansas.

“It is an impressive use of the litigation strategy to overcome the weaknesses of the Kansas open record law,” Kautsch said.
“You can’t do anything just by seeing” Bodycam Video, he added. “You have to get the video itself because that is what makes the point in the court of public opinion or anywhere else.”
After the shooting, Kansas’s investigation office said in a press release that Lowery had “advanced to the officers” holding a knife. The bodycam videos obtained by the family shows that Lowery was tilting to grab a key at the time he was shot in the parking lot of the Kwik Shop service station, and the knife was in another place on the ground outside its scope.
Through the judge’s order, family lawyers were also able to determine the names of all officers involved in the shooting; The Shawnee County District Prosecutor had written their names in its report.
The city of Topeka declined to comment on the accusations of the demand, citing the pending litigation, but said that “the agents of the law face dangerous and unpredictable situations every day, risking their lives and mental well -being to provide security and protection to our community . We will continue to strongly defend our officers in this matter. ”
In a response to the modified demand of the family presented before the court last month, the city denied that the officers were not justified in the shooting, but said that “he admits that after the initial round of shots, the knife remained in the Land near Lowery throughout the conclusion of the incident. ” He also said that “none of the defendants observed the knife until after the lethal force had been used.”
The question of when the police are justified in its use of force occurred before the United States Supreme Court last month, since the judges examined whether the mortal force can be reasonable depending on the moment in which the officers are threatened or if the courts should also consider the circumstances that led to the actions of the officers.
In the case of Lowery, Bodycam videos represent a chaotic event chain for six minutes, first in a house that he shared with his sister and then in the parking lot of the convenience store where he was shot.
Police responded to a call around 12:30 am after Lowery’s sister, who was locked in a room, told a 911 dispatcher that he had “taken a substance” and that he was not acting normal, and He was “using a knife to try to choose a lock to acquire the keys to his car”, according to the modified demand of the family.
In an officer’s bodycam, you can hear a voice telling them to “kick the door.” A minor finally opens the door and cannot tell the police what was happening inside, but the officers then see Lowery emerge.
At that time, the officers said, Lowery tried to flee from the house through a back door.
“The officers reached Lowery outside when they stopped and began to stir the knife in what one described as a ‘fighting position,” said the report of the district prosecutor. “He also had another object, later identified as a plug key, in his other hand.”
The demand of the postulary family that Lowery was not threatening or aggressive with the officers during the meeting at home, and the officers at that time did not consider it necessary to shoot their weapons.

Lowery is seen in the video bodycam of an officer ignoring the repeated orders of “dropping the knife.” He returns inside the house and closes the door, before the woman leaves the house of another door and screams frantically that “my children are there.” The officers enter the house and see Lowery dating the knife in their hands.
According to the police, Lowery left the property in a SUV and led to the Kwik Shop service station, half a mile away, where the officers persecuted him. Police said he tried to robit an busy vehicle.
However, the incident occurred at a blind spot from the outdoor cameras of the convenience store, said the report of the District Prosecutor’s Office.
Bodycam police videos show a frantic situation in the moments before the shooting with multiple officers who are already on the scene and have just arrived.
The knife and the key that Blowy had been holding was on the ground when the officers ordered him to “go down.” You can see an officer in one of the videos that appear to push it. Lowery then turns around and bends to grab the key by his feet. At that time, an officer opens fire to Lowery, and others begin to shoot, sending Lowery falling to the ground.
They order them to turn off your hands and stay down while lining on the ground, bleeding.
“We need you to take your hands and let that English key go,” one heard one of them. Lowery no longer seems to move, and the officers handcuff him while he is face down.
The district prosecutor said that Lowery’s autopsy showed that he had been under the influence of amphetamine, methamphetamine and cocaine at the time of his death.
While several bullets hit Lowery, the office report said: “The most significant lesions consisted of three bullet wounds in the abdomen and three bullet wounds in the chest.”
The family’s demand argues that the officers did not have to shoot their weapons first, and carried tasers and pepper spray they never tried to use.