Update (November 2, 2020): A Kansas City woman who made waves last week with a powerful speech to the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners says she was forced to hire security this weekend after receiving a barrage of death threats. 

In a series of posts on Instagram and Twitter, Keiajah Brooks shared multiple angry messages she’s received.

She also showed three videos of the police tailing her throughout the weekend. 

“Let me make a distinction before i go on a social media detox until after the election. WE WALK BY FAITH AND NOT BY SIGHT ROUND THESE PARTS. I'm not afraid of any threats, I’m simply making the general public aware. I’m not moving out of KC. I am heightening my security,” she wrote on Twitter, later announcing that she had hired private security.

Brooks then shared a lengthy post explaining how she believes the Kansas City Police Department may eventually kill her. 

She described five different scenarios that she envisions she may be hurt or killed, frequently referencing Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, who was killed in December 1969 by officers from the Cook County State's Attorney's Office, the Chicago Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. 

“They will hire a Black man to shoot me randomly, it will be the greatest irony. He will have no ties to me or KCPD. They will claim it was a sporadic act of violence as KCMO has had 154 homicides this year,” she wrote, adding that she thinks she also may be killed through a car accident.

“They will arrest me after a protest and kill me either en route to the precinct or in the precinct. KCPD is self-governing and would be able to cover up their own crimes,” she wrote.

She went on to say that she believes the police may even send an officer to kill her during a traffic stop or random encounter. 

While some in the comments questioned if she was overreacting, others referenced the mysterious deaths of multiple activists who protested in Ferguson in 2014.

Original (October 28, 2020): Keiajah Brooks was the talk of Twitter and Instagram this week after her powerful speech to the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners demanding the resignation of the police chief racked up thousands of views. 

Brooks and other activists, pastors and community leaders were at the board meeting to demand the firing or resignation of Kansas City Police Chief Rick Smith who has faced widespread criticism over accusations that officers in the city routinely use unnecessary force against Black people, according to The Kansas City Star.

The protests that sparked over the summer have grown rapidly since a video showed a police officer kneeling on a pregnant woman's back during an arrest earlier this month, as Blavity previously reported. 

Multiple leaders gave passionate speeches but few matched Brooks, who made sure to thoroughly gather everyone in the room.

"I'm not nice and I don't seek to be respectable. I'm not asking ya'll for anything because ya'll can't and won't be both my savior and my oppressor," she said. "I don't want reform. I want to turn this building into luxury low-cost housing. These will make some really nice apartments to me."

She ripped Smith and other board members for their decision earlier in the meeting to show photos of themselves with Black children during a series of church-organized community events held this summer.

Community leaders have criticized Smith and other police leaders who have not made an effort to communicate with the city's Black community or improve race relations.

"Stop using Black children as photo opportunities 'cause they're cute now, but in 10 years, they're Black male suspects in red shirts and khaki shorts. Eating cookies and drinking milk with children does not absolve you of your complicity in their oppression and denigration, Rick Smith…. 'cause Kansas City will spend more on police than education then try to encourage children to feast with their oppressors. Y'all are really weird," Brooks said.

Brooks then proceeded to personally drag multiple members of the police board, including board president Don Wagner, Nathan Garrett, senior pastor of Victorious Life Church Mark Tolbert and others.

"It's asinine to be called radical or home-grown terrorists for not wanting government employees to kill citizens in any instance, so I'm not here begging anything of soulless white folks and self-preserving Black folks," she said, adding that Garrett is a "former FBI agent who exudes white privilege and is the epitome of mediocrity."

Wagner, she said, has "nothing but pure apathy seeping through the bulging veins of your paper-colored skin."

"You age like trash when you're racist and subject others to violence," she added. 

Board members eventually adjourned the meeting after dozens of people came up to bash the board and Smith for their inaction in recent years, according to Fox4.

Police officials and the mayor, who is Black, criticized Brooks and church members for their comments, expressing support for Smith and refusing to back calls for the police chief to resign.

“We are at a pivotal moment in this country where we are having a collective reckoning of the racism that has pervaded our country since its founding, since before its founding. But it is not going to happen, with all due respect, with popcorn and snow cones. It’s going to happen with policy reform,” said Gavriela Geller, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Bureau | American Jewish Committee.

Since police attacked the pregnant woman in early October, multiple groups have protested in front of City Hall every day demanding reform and less police funding. 


A lawyer for the pregnant woman attended the meeting and ripped into police leaders for failing to respond to protesters' demands. 

Smith has defended his actions as police chief, citing his decision to buy bodycams, ask outside agencies to investigate all police shootings, and "review" how officers use tear gas, The Kansas City Star reported. 

But Brooks and other activists said they will continue protesting at every board meeting until Smith is forced out. 

Brooks ended her powerful speech with a quote from the Bible.

"Anyways, I'll leave you soulless, profit-driven, avaricious, greedy, godforsaken humans, including anyone who works in this building, with one Bible verse," she said.

"From the Bible, detailing the life of Jesus. Jesus Christ, who was another unarmed Black man murdered by authorities in the book you Hell-bound people claim to love so much. 'What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit its soul?'" she added.

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