In a lawsuit concerning access to body camera footage and other records from two deadly police shootings, The Star has taken action to get involved. The Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, filed the first lawsuit on October 17.Â
The defendant is the Board of Police Commissioners of the Kansas City Police Department. Police in Kansas City, Kansas, called the Kansas City Police Department to look into two shootings.Â
Amaree’ya Henderson, 25, was killed in April 2023, while Jon Anderton, 50, was killed in February 2023. On April 26, 2023, Amaree’ya Henderson, 25, was shot and murdered by Kansas City, Kansas police.
 Pauletta Johnson Mark Dupree, the district attorney for Wyandotte County, decided not to charge the police after those investigations were completed. Following the conclusion of an inquiry, case files are open to requests for open records under Missouri’s Sunshine Law.Â
The open records law in Kansas is more stringent. In April and June, The Star requested the case files from KCPD. According to the Unified Government’s lawsuit, Kansas City, Kansas, owns the use-of-force inquiry documents that the KCPD keeps.Â
The argument goes on to say that giving the information to a third party would result in “irreparable harm” and constitute a breach of the two agencies’ contract. On October 22, Platte County Circuit Judge Myles Perry issued a temporary restraining order that would keep the documents from being made public until a hearing on November 6.
 The Star’s lawyer, Bernie Rhodes, filed a 27-page motion on Wednesday arguing that the Sunshine Law supersedes the two agencies’ agreement, which states that “Dissemination of records will be in accordance with the laws of the State of the Agency holding the records.”Â
The request continues by stating that the circumstances surrounding both shootings are still unclear and that it would be a violation of the First Amendment to withhold the information.
 Greg Farmer, executive editor of The Star, stated, “Public officials should be aware that The Star will oppose their illegal attempts to conceal information from our readers.”Â
“What are they attempting to conceal? That is the key question here. We shall exert every effort to ascertain the truth. The Unified Government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
