The Kansas City Defender

BREAKING: Bodycam footage shows the police lynching of unarmed Black teen Saveion McConnell. A Missouri deputy shot at him 9 times. At least 6 of those shots came after Saveion was already incapacitated on the pavement. The prosecutor says it was legal. Watch. 🧵

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Russell justifies one shot: a hand near a waistband. He never analyzes the second, or the ninth. Even if one believed every word of the deputy's story. That would only justify the first shot. There are eight more, and six came after Saveion was on the ground.

kansascitydefender.comExclusive Video: Missouri Deputy Brutally Kills Black Teen, 9 Shots FiredExclusive video shows the horrific slaying of Black nineteen-year-old Saveion McConnell by Missouri police. Shot nine times.

We are publishing the full, unedited recordings and the prosecutor's memo so you can see all of it yourself. View the full investigation here: kansascitydefender.com/justice/save...

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Earlier on the same recording, one of the two officers says: "Trying to find a Black kid at night, that's always fun." Minutes later, they found one.

For 4 and a half months the state hid this tape and hid the deputy's name. On Tuesday, Johnson County Prosecutor Robert Russell released a memo: no charges. The memo was addressed to three police commanders. It misspells Saveion's name on every page.

Saveion was 19. Went to Lee's Summit North HS in Missouri. Played sports. Was the only son among his mother's four children. He was unarmed & never charged with a crime. On May 1, Lafayette County Deputy Kenneth Lewie hit him with a patrol car, then later opened fire.

Electronic Frontier Foundation

In the seconds before the gunfire, the officer standing next to Lewie can be heard yelling "Taser! Taser! Taser!" The man beside him judged the moment called for a Taser. Lewie fired a gun. Nine times.

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@eff.org

26 Aug

“A lot of these companies are pre-IPO, so they’re focused on three things. They’re focused on market penetration, they’re focused on product differentiation, and they’re focused on valuation. And valuation includes the data that they own,” EFF’s @tsnvaa.bsky.social told @kcdefender.bsky.social.

kansascitydefender.comWhile Cutting Buses for the Poor, KCATA Signed a Secret Deal to Harvest Their Faces for a Private Company's AIA secret contract. No policy protecting riders' data. The Defender obtained the deal KCATA signed to harvest bus riders' faces for AI.

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Gen'Challa

@gendou.cryptoanarchy.network

5 July

Replying to @gendou.cryptoanarchy.network

(sorry, I have strong opinions about the state of 'independent' journalism) Anyway, for real independent journalism I prefer @thetriibe.com and @kcdefender.bsky.social for good (if local) news.

kansascitydefender.comWE HAVE A DEAL: North Lawn Tenants Win Sweeping Agreement With LandlordThree years of organizing brought a Chicago landlord to a table in the Historic Northeast. Two hours and three languages later, the tenants of North Lawn walked out with frozen rents, erased debt, rep...

12 June

BREAKING: Kansas City's North Lawn Tenant Union won a sweeping agreement. Rent frozen. Debt erased. Heat by October 1. And the first right to buy their homes. kansascitydefender.com/housing/nort...

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Kim

@kimoco.bsky.social

28 Apr

"A piece about whether a white abolitionist deserves moral standing has been constructed entirely without the Black people whose lives and freedom he died to protect. One begins to understand, reading it, why John Brown felt the need to raise an army" This is the only kind of "history" MAGA wants

The Kansas City Defender @kcdefender.bsky.social

“The question KCUR is asking is not a new question. It is the question the white press has always asked about people who fight for Black freedom.” Read our latest; kansascitydefender.com/propagandaob...

kansascitydefender.comKCUR Not Sure How to Feel About Ending Slavery – The Kansas City DefenderStill workshopping its position on chattel slavery, the NPR affiliate invites you into the conversation.

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28 Apr

28 Apr

kansascitydefender.comRubio's Global War on "Anti-American" Speech Has Its First Prisoners – The Kansas City DefenderA cable signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio directs every U.S. embassy worldwide to suppress "anti-American propaganda" using Pentagon psyops units and recruited local influencers. Weeks earlier,...

1 Apr

A cable signed by Marco Rubio directs every U.S. embassy worldwide to suppress “anti-American propaganda” using Pentagon psyops units. Weeks earlier, the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria had already directed the country’s secret police to arrest two citizens over tweets critical of israel & the U.S.

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Anodyne

@anodynesix.bsky.social

24 Mar

"One radar system destroyed in this war cost [US] taxpayers a billion dollars. One. That is more than enough to fund every public school in Kansas City, build 5 full-service grocery stores ... and completely eradicate homelessness in Kansas City. Instead, it is smoldering wreckage in [Qatar]."

Harms Committed@harmscommitted.com

"Over 165 schoolgirls buried. 66 schools bombed." "The capitalist imperialist forces that bomb children abroad are the same ones that starve our children." "Empire does not stop at the border. It starts at home." #Missouri #USA #Iran #Israel #Education #Military

kansascitydefender.comKill the Imperialist Lies: The Truth on the U.S. War Against IranYour government launched an illegal war, bombed 66 schools, killed 165 schoolgirls, and is asking you to pay $200 billion for it. Here is everything Western media won't tell you.

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Harms Committed

@harmscommitted.com

24 Mar

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Harms Committed

@harmscommitted.com

11 Mar

"[T]he return of CoreCivic to Leavenworth carries such a deep historical weight." "The haunting and once distant stain on the history of Kansas – Leavenworth's pro-slavery past – is once again knocking on the door." #Kansas #USA #Incarceration #Deportation #EthnicCleansing #Slavery #Torture

kansascitydefender.comCoreCivic Kills People. Leavenworth Is Voting on Whether to Let Them Do It Here.Leavenworth was founded by pro-slavery settlers and became the epicenter of Bleeding Kansas. That same city votes today on whether to resurrect a CoreCivic detention facility — a company that has already killed people in its custody — and open a 1,000-bed ICE camp to kidnap, cage, and disappear immigrants from our region. The shackles have always looked different here. This morning, Leavenworth decides what they look like in 2026.

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Harms Committed

@harmscommitted.com

7 Mar

"[V]ocabulary of empire." "Imagine bombs falling on Manhattan. Imagine ten waves of airstrikes over five days on a city that size and then try to tell me who the terrorists are." #USA #Iran #Israel #Protest #Media #Education #Military #Nuclear #Weapons

kansascitydefender.comWho the Terrorists Are: On the American-Israeli War in IranThey killed 165 schoolgirls on a Saturday morning, bragged about obtaining "complete control of Iranian skies," and plunged the planet into its most dangerous military crisis since 1945. A radical examination of American empire's suicidal hubris, the intelligence operations that manufactured the pretext, and the media apparatus selling civilizational destruction as foreign policy.

truthout.orgThe Web Is Not Enough — Why These Left Media Workers Are Opening Physical SpacesCorporations control the internet, so grassroots media workers are creating in-person spaces to build collective power.

2 Mar

We are proud to announce Jon Jeter as the KC Defender's first International Correspondent. Jon is a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, former WaPo Bureau Chief, and the author of one of the most important books written this century about Western economic policy. He currently writes from Kenya.

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Ella Fassler

@ella-writes.bsky.social

17 Feb

Left media workers & publishers are opening physical spaces aimed at building collective power. my latest for @truthout.org truthout.org/articles/the...

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