Topeka Police officers are under intense scrutiny after the shooting of Taylor Lowery. Initial reports from officers claimed Lowery attacked them with a knife. That was the story. Clear, direct, justified, they said.
But now, that version of events is being questioned.
Body cam footage and emerging details suggest Lowery was not holding a knife at all. Reports indicate he was holding a wrench. A tool, not a blade, not a weapon designed to stab, a wrench.
Officers opened fire, not once, not twice but 34 times.
The footage shows Lowery was only holding a wrench and was backing away from officers when they opened fire, shooting him 34 times on Oct. 13, 2022, leaving him with 41 bullet wounds because some of the bullets left multiple injuries.
It was only after the 33-year-old man lay dying in front of a gas station that they realized he was holding a wrench, not a knife – which was lying only inches away from the cops as they opened fire.
Nevertheless, a Topeka police officer lied to Lowery’s sister when she showed up at the scene, distraught and crying over the shooting death of her brother.
“He tried to attack us with that knife,” the cop told her.
And Topeka police and city attorneys maintained that false narrative for more than two years, along with the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and the Shawnee County District Attorney’s Office, refusing to release the body camera footage under the guise that “it is not in the public’s interest” to view the video.
It took a federal judge to let things out by ordering for the body cam footage.
“They gave repeated commands to drop the knife,” said Melissa Underwood after the shooting in a statement to the media, who is a spokesperson for the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, the state agency that investigates officer-involved shootings.
“Lowery then advanced toward officers holding the knife. During the incident, five officers from TPD fired, striking Lowery multiple times.”
“They got out of their vehicle, identified themselves as police and began yelling commands to Lowery,” the district attorney’s report states.
“Lowery turned towards Sgt. (name redacted), raised the knife above his head, and began charging. Both Det. (Redacted) and Sgt. (redacted) had their duty weapons out and began firing at Lowery.”
Topeka City Attorney Amanda Stanley also went along with the lie, refusing to release the videos to local media because she claimed it would “not be in the public’s interest,” according to the Topeka Capital-Journal.
And now that the lies have been exposed, attorneys for the police officers have filed a motion against one of the attorneys representing the Lowery family, a Black woman named LaRonna Lassiter Saunders, for releasing the body camera videos to the family, despite the judge’s order.
Misinformation in the first hours after a shooting can fuel anger. It can also damage credibility for years.
Right now, many questions remain unanswered. What did body cameras capture? How far away was Lowery? Why 34 shots? Why say knife if it was a wrench?
