KGNU Series Badge of Courage: Surviving Police Violence in Denver

KGNU’s mission statement includes the goal of maintaining a space for underrepresented communities to air their voices and stories. Because of the limited opportunity for victims of police misconduct to tell their stories, Badge of Courage is providing an opportunity for survivors of police violence to speak. In today’s edition we hear from Sherri Landrum.

The first time that the general public heard the family’s account of the police shooting of Sharod Kindell was the day a vigil was held for Denver teen Jessica Hernandez who was shot by Denver Police two weeks later. At that vigil, his cousins had come to ask for public support because of the circumstances surrounding the shooting.

On January 9, 2015, twenty-three year old Sharod Kindell was shot by Denver Police four times, once in his femoral artery. His family reported that Kindell had his hands up when he was shot, and that Denver Police had targeted him on multiple occasions. In this account his mother, Sherri Landrum, said that her son had been pulled over 30 times in three weeks, four times in one day in front of the family home. She questioned how Denver Health, where her son was taken following the shooting, could defy their own policy to communicate with the family in serious cases simply after being ordered by Denver Police to prevent the family from seeing the severely injured Kindell. She criticized the conduct of each member of the police department with whom she had contact, and calls for the the resignation of Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey. “How can a police officer be involved in 4 shooting incidents in 7 months and still have a job?” she questioned. Officer Jeffrey DiManna was named as the officer who shot Kindell.

Following the shooting Kindell was charged with first-degree threatening to assault a peace officer with a weapon, second-degree assault of a peace officer, first-degree aggravated motor vehicle theft and possession of a weapon by a previous offender.

His mother has asserted that he was not in a stolen vehicle and has pointed to various aspects of police account that has changed over the course of the case. The family has said that police continue to follow them around their neighborhood.

The cases against Kindell are open so his mother declined to discuss details of his case, but she did want to talk about her experience the hours following the shooting.

Sherri Landrum: