Monday (Dec.2) was the start of the trial for Roger Gobulski, who was a former and disgraced Kansas City, Kansas, police detective—but he did not show up for trial. According to his tracking device, he was still at home, and that is where police found him dead. The cause of death is alleged to be a self-inflicted shooting. His trial was for the federal violation of the civil rights of two Black women whom he raped. One of the conditions of his house arrest was that he did not have access to firearms, but just like a crooked cop, the law never applied to him, and instead, he took the law into his own hands.
There are two Kansas City, Kansases *laughs*
There is the white side who praised Gobulski’s work in keeping the streets safe, and then there is the Black side, which he terrorized and whose residents knew him as the grim reaper. While many are celebrating his death, at least one of his victims feels violated all over again.
Lamonte McIntyre spent the first 23 years of his adulthood in prison before he was released and officially exonerated for double homicide, even though there was no physical evidence, motive, or evidence connecting him to the crime. He was imprisoned due to the dirty police work of Gobulski, who intimidated witnesses. The prosecutor on that case, who also had an undisclosed romantic relationship with the judge at that time, threatened to remove one of the witnesses’ children from her home if she did not testify against McIntyre, even though she stated he was not the person she saw commit the crime.
This is the thing about being a racist: why do you delight so much in the treatment you are too cowardice to receive, so cowardice even, that you would rather kill yourself than face the consequences of your own actions? Yet someone facing those same consequences for actions they did not commit, still does not interrupt your nightly slumber. Gobulski did not just rape those two Black women (and, in fact, is alleged to have sexually assaulted many more), but he raped the entire Black community of Kansas City. He deprived Black people of their lives for no other reason than his power on the police force far outweighed the power of his d*ck. He felt small, and the only way to make himself feel better was to stand on the backs of the Black people he paralyzed at the kneecaps. McIntyre wanted to see Gobulski stand trial, but that justice was once again stolen from him.
After being falsely imprisoned for the totality of his adulthood, McIntyre existed in a system that siphoned free labor from him for years, without a pension, social security or any financial assistance, upon his release, as Kansas is one of 16 states that does not provide financial compensation for wrongly convicted exonerees. His case was one that finally changed that law in the state, and he subsequently received $1.5 million in damages.
For five years, I have been covering what is unquestionably the biggest criminal justice scandal in American history.
— Michael Harriot (@michaelharriot) December 2, 2024
Today it ended when the most corrupt cop in history took his life.
But it's not over.
A thread.
Jermeka Hobbs, a Kanas City resident, filed a lawsuit against Gobulski for sexual assault and said that she was groomed at a young age to be one of his “girls.” She alleges Gobulski ran a sex trafficking ring out of a public housing project along with two other police officers. While it is good that he will no longer be able to inflict pain on the Black community, he still robbed them of the same justice he received a paycheck to maintain, even down to his final breath. His version of keeping the streets clean was leaving his malignant residue on the places he knew white residents would not care were still soiled.
Here’s to hoping that the hell he receives in the afterlife is at least comparable to the hell he gave during his lifetime. After the court was notified of his death, his case was subsequently dismissed, leaving a gaping wound in the body of justice, once again.
