Book Launch: Injustice Town

When the bodies of two Black men were found sitting with a crackpipe in a parked car in a rundown section of town in 1994, it seemed just another day in Kansas City, Kansas. The swift arrest and conviction of a seventeen-year-old Black kid from a broken home raised no eyebrows either.

And yet, thirty years later, Lamonte McIntyre would prove to be the David that took down the Goliath of corruption that had long controlled the city’s power structure and enveloped the city’s justice system

But the effort to prove Lamonte’s innocence opened a Pandora’s box. Before it was over, the fight to win Lamonte’s exoneration exposed corrupt police and prosecutors, incompetent court-appointed defense lawyers, and a judge who violated ethical standards by his secret past relationship with the prosecutor, whom he favored in his rulings.

Injustice Town follows Lamonte’s case from its harrowing beginning to its triumphant end and beyond, including the legal tsunami that engulfed prosecutors, attorneys, and judges in its wake. Most shockingly, the lead cop on the case was indicted by the United States Department of Justice for the widespread abuses committed years earlier on women in Kansas City's Black community. These abuses were documented by Lamonte’s team. The criminal case ended literally with a bang, denying Lamonte and others harmed by the detective the chance to seek justice.