The Kansas City police officer who fatally shot two people during an encounter Friday night previously shot and killed an unarmed man in 2020 and was accused of excessive force in two other cases, according to sources with knowledge of the most recent shooting investigation.
The officer, Blayne Newton, killed two people and injured a third around 9 p.m., near the McDonald’s restaurant at 31st Street and Van Brunt Boulevard, according to the Missouri State Highway Patrol, which is investigating the shooting as an outside agency by agreement with the Kansas City Police Department.
Neither the highway patrol nor the police department have publicly identified the officer. However, three people with knowledge of the investigation on Monday named Newton as the shooting officer. The Star is not naming them in this story because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation.
Newton has previously been the subject of excessive force allegations.
On March 12, 2020, he shot and killed a 47-year-old unarmed man, Donnie Sanders, after a traffic stop near Prospect Avenue. Later that year, he was accused of placing his knee into the back of a woman who was nine months pregnant during an arrest.
He was one of three officers accused of beating and using a Taser on a teenager in 2019.
Newton could not be reached for comment Monday.
Community activists in Kansas City said they were troubled that Newton was involved in another fatal shooting.
“Blayne Newton is a serial killer,” said Steve Young, an organizer with Kansas City Law Enforcement Accountability Project or KC LEAP.
“There are officers who don’t discharge their weapons their entire careers. He’s (Newton) now responsible for three deaths and two assaults that we know of.”
Sgt. Jacob Becchina, a police department spokesman, directed any questions about the investigation to the highway patrol, the agency tasked with reviewing officer-involved shooting or other deadly force cases.
“We have not named the officer, nor do we ever unless there are charges filed and the identification becomes a public record,” Becchina said in a text message to a Star reporter.
“KCPD is fully cooperating with the Highway Patrol investigation,” he said.
Becchina said Missouri law prohibits the police department from releasing any individually identifiable personnel information about an officer.
Sgt. Andy Bell, a spokesman for the highway patrol, the agency investigating the shooting, would not confirm Newton as the officer involved in the shootings.
“We will not release the name of the officer involved while there is an ongoing investigation,” Bell told The Star on Monday.
The most recent shooting
The shooting on Friday unfolded after Newton noticed a pickup truck stopped in an area of the intersection.
According to the highway patrol, footage from the dashboard camera from the officer’s car showed a person lean out the driver’s side window of the truck and point a gun at either a sedan or a minivan stopped nearby.
A passenger in the pickup truck then stepped out of the vehicle and started walking with a gun in their hand. They got back in the truck with their gun and sped away shortly after, said Bell, the highway patrol spokesman.
The officer’s car pulled forward next to the minivan, which prevented the dashboard camera from recording the interaction between the people in the minivan and the officer, Bell said.
Shots were fired by the officer through the driver’s side window and into the minivan. Shell casings recovered at the scene would suggest that someone inside the minivan also fired a weapon, according to Bell.
Following the gunfire, the minivan slowly rolled forward, striking a curb. The officer ordered the occupants of the minivan to exit the vehicle. Three people walked out, while two people, a driver and a passenger, were too injured to move.
The victims, Marcell Nelson, 42, and Kristen Fairchild, 42, who police believe was driving, later died from their injuries, Bell said.
A third shooting victim had minor injuries.
No officers were hurt, according to authorities.
Investigators interviewed two people about the shooting. Police recovered four firearms from the minivan, Bell said.
The killing of Donnie Sanders
In March 2020, Newton was patrolling the area near 51st Street and Prospect Avenue when his dashboard camera video showed him making a U-turn and begin following a Chevy Tahoe down Prospect, then turning west on 51st Street.
Newton continued to follow the Tahoe as it turned into an alley between Wabash and Prospect avenues. Newton then activated his lights and sirens.
Sanders pulled over near the end of the alley and ran as Newton got out of his patrol car and began chasing him. The dashboard camera did not record a view of the two men, though Newton was heard yelling commands at Sanders to stop and show his hands.
Newton fired five shots, striking Sanders three times. Sanders died at a hospital the following morning.
A day later, the police department said Sanders was not carrying a weapon. They found a cellphone in his pocket.
Jackson County prosecutors said they did not have sufficient evidence to support filing criminal charges against Newton.
The family of Sanders filed a $10 million civil lawsuit the following year in Kansas City federal court. That lawsuit remains ongoing.
The arrest of Deja Stallings
While making an arrest in October 2020, Newton was captured on video as he allegedly put his knee on 25-year-old Deja Stallings’ back with her belly on the ground.
She was nine months pregnant at the time. Stallings’ attorney confirmed Newton was the officer who arrested the woman.
Police did not confirm or deny Newton’s involvement and did not provide unredacted documentation of the incident.
Three officers accused of excessive force
In March 2022, the police department paid $325,000 as part of a legal settlement involving a Kansas City teenager who was punched more than 10 times and tasered by three KCPD officers in 2019.
Newton was one of three officers involved in the case.
The 17-year-old was grabbed from his vehicle and tackled to the ground, repeatedly punched and then attacked with a Taser, according to a lawsuit that was filed in Jackson County Circuit Court.
Lora McDonald, executive director of the Metro Organization for Racial and Economic Equity or MORE2, said the group would continue to petition the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the police department.
“We’ve noticed a pattern of practice by the department, a complete failure to hold officers accountable, including when the officer has been criminally indicted,” McDonald said.
“For that reason, we, as an organization and as a community, must insist upon local governance of this department. It is the only way that we can begin to create processes that will result in reduced brutality and killing of citizens.”