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KCK Residents Sue Police Officers for Discrimination

By Sylvia Maria Gross

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kcur/local-kcur-650715.mp3

Kansas City, MO – A black Kansas City Kansas family and two friends filed a federal lawsuit on Thursday against six white police officers for allegedly violating their civil rights. The lawsuit stems from an incident that happened two years ago, at an eighteen year-old's birthday party in the basement of a duplex apartment in the Turner area of KCK.

The family says it was a quiet event with about 30 people, no drugs or alcohol and just a small CD player that the neighbor says she couldn't hear. They say the police arrived out of the blue and tried to shut the party down. The lawsuit alleges the officers ended up hitting, kicking and pepper-spraying people at the apartment, and made racist and sexist comments. KCUR's Sylvia Maria Gross spoke to the birthday girl's grandmother Gerene Hamilton the family's lawyer Arthur Benson, and FBI spokesman Jeff Lanza about the bureau's investigation of the incident.

This story was produced for KC Currents. To listen on your own schedule, subscribe to the KC Currents Podcast.

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