Kansas City, MO

The Kansas City Police Department (KCPD) has paid at least $28 million in documented police misconduct settlements from 2021 to 2026, with a Yahoo News investigation suggesting the actual total exceeds $50 million when all cases are included. The dataset is anchored by the wrongful death of Cameron Lamb, a 26-year-old Black man shot in the back by KCPD Detective Eric DeValkenaere on December 3, 2019.

The Lamb case is one of the most significant in the dataset for a reason that goes beyond the dollar amount: DeValkenaere was convicted of second-degree murder in 2021, making him one of a small number of police officers in U.S. history to be criminally convicted for an on-duty shooting. The Lamb family settled their civil lawsuit with the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners for $4.1 million in April 2025. The case prompted sustained scrutiny of KCPD's use-of-force policies and the department's accountability mechanisms.

The Department of Justice opened an investigation into KCPD under the Biden administration, but that investigation was closed in 2025 under the Trump administration without a consent decree or findings of systemic violations. KCPD remains one of the few large urban departments without federal oversight despite a documented pattern of high-cost settlements.

For insurance underwriters, the Kansas City dataset illustrates a department with a concentrated liability profile: a small number of high-cost cases drive the majority of total exposure, with the Lamb and Newton wrongful death settlements accounting for more than $7.6 million of the documented total. The Yahoo News reporting suggesting a $50 million actual total implies significant undocumented exposure that standard public-records searches do not capture.