‘I was petrified’: In lawsuit, Kansas City attorney says KCPD held him at gunpoint
A Kansas City attorney and activist has sued several police officers, alleging that in 2019 they pulled him over as he drove his own car and pointed guns at him.
Henry Service, who is African American, said he was driving his newly purchased Maserati sedan July 26, 2019, when two officers “became fixated” on him as he crossed the Missouri River southbound on Interstate 29.
He was heading back to his office in the 18th & Vine District after court appearances for clients in Clay County.
The officers, Kenneth Allen and Nikole Shapot, accused Service of driving a car stolen weeks earlier, “despite the countless number of vehicles that are stolen” in the region, according to the lawsuit filed July 21 in Jackson County Circuit Court.
In the suit, Service’s attorney, Gerald Gray II, said the officers had no probable cause to arrest Service, yet they followed him closely for several miles, causing him to feel anxious and distressed.
The officers tailed Service to the Historic Lincoln Building, which he owns. When Service pulled into a parking lot, the officers and others who had arrived boxed his car in and drew their weapons on him, according to the lawsuit.
“I thought I was gonna die,” Service told The Star on Thursday. “I was petrified.”
‘Arrest the whole block’
A crowd of people who know Service came outside, wanting to know what was going on, Service recalled. He said he got out of his car, put his hands up and walked back toward the officers. He was wearing a suit and tie, he said.
Police called in a van, Service remembered, because “I guess they thought they were going to have to arrest the whole block.” He said one officer sat and laughed about the situation.
Service said he was told his car matched the description of one that was reported stolen. He wondered, “do they pull everybody over at gunpoint?” If officers think a car is stolen, he said, they should simply pull the driver over and ask about it.
Officers pushed people around, including Service’s paralegal, before they left, he told The Star.
The irony of it, Service said, was that friends had joked with him days earlier about how he was going to get pulled over “all the time” for being a Black man in a Maserati.
Police response
The police officers named in the lawsuit did not yet have attorneys listed in court records who could be reached for comment.
Sgt. Jake Becchina, a spokesman for the Kansas City Police Department, said the department generally does not comment on pending litigation to “ensure fairness for all sides involved.”
Service’s lawyer called the officers’ conduct “reckless and outrageous.” Service, of Gardner, Kansas, did not pose a threat to the officers, he wrote in the lawsuit, which alleges assault, false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Service said he hopes the police department has to pay him so officers stop running through his community “like they’re a military occupying force.”
Last summer, Service organized protests over police brutality outside City Hall and the Country Club Plaza. He said he has more recently been in communication with activists who have called for a federal investigation into the police department’s practices.
An initial hearing in the lawsuit is set for Nov. 8 before Judge Bryan E. Round.
