Fatal KC police shooting left man homeless, another traumatized. Officer still patrolling

Jaden Thorns knew he had been shot. He started yelling he’d been hit, but couldn’t see anything because blood was covering his eyes. He heard a Kansas City Police Department officer say five ambulances were coming and wondered who else had been hurt. Hours later he learned that his uncle and a woman he knew had been killed. Then he found out the shooter was a Kansas City police officer who had previously killed another man and was accused of excessive force in other encounters. Officer Blayne Newton remains on the force and is assigned to the patrol bureau, the department said Monday.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol investigated the June 2023 shooting where Thorns was injured. The case was handed over to the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office for review in October, but the office has not made a charging decision nearly a year later. Newton is named in three ongoing lawsuits, including one filed by Thorns and the families of Marcell Nelson, 42, and Kristin Fairchild, 42, the two people who died in the shooting.

Thorns, who was in the van with Nelson and Fairchild, and Clay Garner, Fairchild’s son who wasn’t present during the shooting — say they continue to feel the ripple effects from the violence and loss. Gardner, now 21, ended up homeless after Fairchild died. Thorns moved away from Kansas City for nine months immediately after the shooting, missing crucial months with his daughter, who was one at the time. Both men said they have turned to alcohol to cope with the aftermath of their grief and trauma.

Activists with Kansas City Law Enforcement Accountability Project, or KC LEAP, say the effects of the police shooting extend into the wider community, too. “It just brings to light that something different needs to be done within the Kansas City Police Department,” said Steve Young, co-founder of KC LEAP. “We have this new police chief, you know, Stacy Graves, who’s supposed to be about change, but yet Blayne Newton is still the same. It’s not changing.”

‘Bullets flying’ Thorns and a couple friends had been hanging out at a pool on June 9, 2023. They were on their way back home with Fairchild, who was driving. Nelson was in the front passenger seat of the van. He was armed, but it’s unclear where his gun was throughout the events that unfolded. The van came to a stop at the intersection near 31st Street and Van Brunt Boulevard when Thorns said he heard a commotion. A person in the driver’s side of a truck that was stopped in the lane to their right pointed a firearm out the window toward them and then drove off. Dashboard camera footage reviewed by The Star showed Newton, who had been behind the truck, pull up to their van and open fire.

Thorns took cover. There were “bullets flying, I started hearing glass shattering,” he recalled. He crouched near the console behind the front seats. After it quieted, he heard yelling. Someone was telling them to get out of the car. “I just started yelling ‘I’m shot,’ you know, ‘I’m hit,’” he said. He was taken to the hospital where he was treated for a minor injury. The bullet grazed his head and has left a scar. His mom Eboney Allmon told him that Nelson, her brother and his uncle, was dead. “That hit home,” Thorns said. Thorns was close to his Nelson. The two had worked at a warehouse together and frequently hung out after work or on the weekends. “He was in my life a lot,” Thorns said. “We go way back.” Allmon said her brother gave the best hugs, was always cracking jokes and loved to eat. Eboney Allmon (left) and her family are mourning the loss of her brother Marcell Nelson (right), who was killed along with his friend Kristen Fairchild in a shooting in June 2023 that involved a Kansas City police officer. Eboney Allmon (left) and her family are mourning the loss of her brother Marcell Nelson (right), who was killed along with his friend Kristen Fairchild in a shooting in June 2023 that involved a Kansas City police officer. Eboney Allmon Nelson was the first person Thorns had been close to that he had lost. “It be hard sometimes,” Thorns said. “I can’t really sit there and talk about it like just freely you know without like breaking down or whatever, you know. I remember it like it was yesterday, you know, like I can say I still be having bad dreams about it. You know, it’d be keeping me up at night sometimes.”

Thorns left town for several months, in part in an attempt to forget everything that had happened. He returned in March. He’s 21, an age he imagined he would be spending having fun. But he mostly stays at home. He said he’s a lot more cautious in general now. Allmon said she tried to make sure he has everything he needs so he doesn’t have to go out much. She’s “always on alert. If my phone rings, I’m thinking like the worst.”

Anxiety, panic attacks Gardner was living with his mom on a month-to-month lease before the shooting. He became worried after he hadn’t heard from her. Then the police came to his door and told him she had died. Gardner said Fairchild was a hard worker. She was bubbly — but you didn’t want to piss her off, he said. In the days after her death, he went back to their place to pack up her belongings but found himself already locked out by the apartment complex. He said he had to fight to get their stuff back. That included their dog, who had been taken to a local shelter. Gardner, an only child with no family nearby, had to make phone calls informing people about what had happened and make arrangements. At the same time, he found himself without a place to live. “I ended up homeless,” he said, “bouncing around, staying in all kinds of different places.” For a while, that was a van. Then a friend’s house, then what was essentially a drug house, then another place with a buddy. That place didn’t have running water which “was a struggle,” Gardner said. It took nearly a year for him to secure stable housing. Gardner said he’s had “a lot of anxiety. I’ve started having panic attacks.” He believes Newton should be fired. “They don’t really care,” he said of police. “Just rip people’s life up and then you go back home to your family and get paid to stay at home.” At the same time, “being mad about or feeling some kind of way isn’t going to do me any good,” he said.

Multiple lawsuits Attorney John Picerno represents Thorns and Gardner in a lawsuit filed in June. It alleges the victims presented no threat to Newton and that the officer “used an unreasonable amount of force because using deadly force was not necessary under the circumstances.” Picerno said Newton had no idea who was in the van and put people at risk when he opened fire. “I think that’s the biggest concern that the family has here, is that that did not have to happen that way,” Picerno said. “There were other alternatives.”

Young, with KC LEAP, said they were horrified when they found out the shooting officer was Newton. “It’s unbelievable that that man is still on the payroll,” said Winifred Jamieson, with KC LEAP. Newton, who has been with the department since 2017, has previously been the subject of excessive force allegations.

A lawsuit filed earlier this year alleges he assaulted a woman at a Platte County Walmart. Newton was working off-duty but wearing a Kansas City Police Department uniform and driving a department patrol vehicle. Bermeeka Mitchell began live-streaming an arrest when Newton allegedly “grabbed and twisted both her arms in a forceful manner,” her lawsuit said, and placed the heel of his boot on her foot and grinded it down. According to court documents, the Kansas City Police Department’s Office of Community Complaints sustained Mitchell’s allegations of excessive force. A May 2023 letter from the OCC said disciplinary action was taken against Newton, but it did not provide details.

On March 12, 2020, Newton shot and killed a 47-year-old unarmed man, Donnie Sanders, after a traffic stop near 51st Street and Prospect Avenue. A federal lawsuit remains ongoing in Sanders’ death. Later that year, Newton was accused of placing his knee into the back of a woman who was nine months pregnant during an arrest. He was also one of three officers accused of beating and using a police stun gun on a teenager in 2019. Newton has not faced criminal charges in any of the incidents. Police officers are rarely charged when they use lethal force. A rare exception is the case of Eric DeValkenaere, who was convicted of manslaughter. The former detective fatally shot Cameron Lamb in 2019 on Kansas City’s East Side. Officer Alayna Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for KCPD, said the department has taken several steps to serve the community better. Those include training officers in an approach to handling volatile situations called Integrating Communication, Assessment, and Tactics, and launching a program to get community feedback to improve service.Read more at: https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article290983830.html#storylink=cpy