SIKESTON, Mo. \u2014 Not everyone at Lloyd Gilmore\u2019s funeral knew him well. One woman, who had ironed her clothes two days in advance, said she just wanted to be there for his family. School-age children, guided by their parents, approached his open casket in the sanctuary of Cornerstone Baptist Church and peeked inside. Other people looked away.<\/p>\n
On that rainy Friday afternoon, hundreds of such mourners gathered to honor the man who went to the police department for help and didn\u2019t come back.<\/p>\n
\u201cStay woke. Stay guarded,\u201d his daughter Lania Gilmore told the church full of mourners in this city of fewer than 16,000 with a long, troubled history of racial violence. \u201cBe there for your family and love on one another.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her father, a 44-year-old Sikeston resident, died in police custody on June 10. During a quick, physical altercation involving seven Sikeston police officers, he was shocked with a Taser and put into hobble restraints, which allow officers to hogtie a person\u2019s feet and hands, according to a police report obtained by KFF Health News<\/a> through a public records request. Two autopsies were performed, but they \u2014 and Gilmore\u2019s cause of death \u2014 had not been released as of mid-July while the result of a toxicology report remained pending.<\/p>\n Gilmore had approached an officer in the parking lot of the police station, according to the report, speaking words the officer said he could not understand. Lania Gilmore said that her dad, who had mental health issues, had asked her to call the police department and that he ran there seeking help.<\/p>\n \u201cI kind of trusted the fact that he was OK because he was at the police station,\u201d she told KFF Health News.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tLloyd Gilmore, a 44-year-old Sikeston resident, had been looking for a safe space on the day he died, said his daughter Lania Gilmore. He told her to call the police department for help. Before he died, the police shocked him with a Taser and put him into hobble restraints. \t\t\t\t\t\t (Lania Gilmore)<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tSome of Lloyd Gilmore\u2019s children embrace during his funeral on June 26 at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Sikeston. \u201cStay woke. Stay guarded,\u201d his daughter Lania Gilmore (left) told the church full of mourners. \u201cBe there for your family and love on one another.\u201d\t\t\t\t\t\t (Cara Anthony\/KFF Health News)<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n A plaque is displayed during Lloyd Gilmore\u2019s funeral. Hundreds of mourners gathered in his honor. (Cara Anthony\/KFF Health News)<\/p>\n At his funeral, hardly anyone spoke of the police \u2014 and, at the family\u2019s request, the funeral home declined to ask police to provide traffic assistance as they usually would. A preacher did his best to comfort Gilmore\u2019s family. \u201cSometimes we need not talk,\u201d the Rev. Tommy Robinson Jr. told the crowd. \u201cWe just need to listen.\u201d<\/p>\n But after years of expressing concerns of racial bias within the city\u2019s police department, some Black Sikeston residents wonder if anyone is listening at all anymore. They want justice even as the national reckoning over police brutality has faded from public view.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need the police. We just need them to do their jobs correctly and leave Black people alone,\u201d said Mark Wiggins, president of Sikeston\u2019s NAACP branch. \u201cThey know it. We know it. The truth of the matter is there\u2019s a lot of unwarranted cop killings of Black men in America.\u201d<\/p>\n Mark Wiggins, president of the local NAACP branch, sits outside his Sikeston, Missouri, home. Wiggins grew up in the city, which has a history of racial violence. After Lloyd Gilmore died in police custody on June 10, Wiggins protested alongside other residents and civil rights activists. (Cara Anthony\/KFF Health News)<\/p>\n But despite worldwide protests in 2020 in the wake of high-profile police-involved killings of Black people, the public paid little attention when a prestigious group released a report last year about deaths in custody, said Roger Mitchell Jr., a forensic pathologist finishing his term as president of the National Medical Association<\/a>, which represents African American physicians. The report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine<\/a> urged Congress to require states to collect and report data on all in-custody deaths, a problem that Mitchell said disproportionately affects Black men.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are in an anti-diversity environment,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cWe\u2019re in a war.\u201d<\/p>\n Upon returning to the White House last year, President Donald Trump immediately signed an executive order<\/a> that targeted diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. As a result of that and other measures, funding for racial equity has dwindled, researchers who once studied violence as a public health issue have redirected their work to less politically charged topics, and a growing fear of professional and political retaliation has made it increasingly difficult to sustain the momentum.<\/p>\n Kevin Myles, a civil rights leader based in Georgia who has trained tens of thousands of activists around the country, said he saw a shift in priorities around racial equity before Trump was reelected. Since then, it has escalated, he said, and he has lost at least half his funding for his work on equity, child welfare, and mass incarceration.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think we really were prepared. It\u2019s not that we didn\u2019t take it seriously. I don\u2019t think we were psychologically prepared for what this means,\u201d Myles said. \u201cEverything we have done before now was practice. The game has just started.\u201d<\/p>\n Sikeston, located in the rural area of southeastern Missouri known as the Bootheel, has a history of racial violence, including the brutal lynching of a Black man named Cleo Wright in 1942. Another Black man, Undraus Nabors, was found dead in a grain silo months after heading out to pick up his white girlfriend in 1999. In April 2020, less than a month before George Floyd\u2019s murder in Minneapolis, an unarmed Black man, Denzel Taylor, was shot at least 18 times by Sikeston police officers. The city was the subject of the 2024 \u201cSilence in Sikeston\u201d documentary film and podcast<\/a> by KFF Health News, Retro Report, and WORLD.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n \t\t<\/p>\n The \u201cSilence in Sikeston\u201d documentary film explores how the nation\u2019s first federally investigated lynching and a police killing 78 years apart haunt the same rural Missouri community. The film from KFF Health News and Retro Report explores the lasting impact of such trauma \u2014 and what it means to speak out about it. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Larry McClellon, a longtime Sikeston resident who founded a civil rights group called And Justice for All, has expressed concerns about the integrity of his city\u2019s police department for decades. He\u2019s also convinced that being vocal about racism in Sikeston comes with a price.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a dark side of Sikeston that a lot of people do not know and don\u2019t prefer to know,\u201d McClellon told KFF Health News in 2021 after police fatally shot Denzel Taylor. \u201cBut I\u2019ve walked the streets.\u201d<\/p>\n He believes someone burned down the headquarters of And Justice for All in 2019. A report from the city\u2019s public safety department<\/a> said the fire was \u201csuspicious in nature.\u201d The electricity in his building wasn\u2019t on when flames erupted, he said, so he wasn\u2019t satisfied when an investigator called it an electrical fire. He asked the department to take another look. No one was charged.<\/p>\n The headquarters of And Justice for All, a civil rights advocacy group in Sikeston, was destroyed in a 2019 fire. A report from the city\u2019s public safety department says the 2019 fire was \u201csuspicious in nature.\u201d Larry McClellon, a longtime Sikeston resident who founded the group, has expressed concerns about racial violence in the community. (Cara Anthony\/KFF Health News)<\/p>\n James McMillen, the city\u2019s police chief, told KFF Health News in 2021 that he had plans to improve policing before Taylor died. At the time, McMillen, who is white, said he and his department had \u201ca poor relationship\u201d with Black residents in the city. He started some community meetings after Taylor\u2019s death, but he said in 2024 that people had stopped showing up.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have tried,\u201d the chief said during a City Council meeting<\/a> this month. \u201cBut, as my daddy would say, a relationship is a two-way street. And so I don\u2019t know what else I can do.\u201d<\/p>\n During the meeting, Lania Gilmore pleaded with the city to release more information about her father\u2019s case. Other residents wanted to know why the officers involved were not placed on administrative leave immediately after Gilmore died.<\/p>\n \u201cIt depends on the circumstances. It does,\u201d McMillen told them. \u201cYou\u2019re assuming a certain set of details that you don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n Another resident asked the city about training for officers. McMillen said his officers are trained. Nationwide, many communities have created specialized non-law enforcement teams<\/a> to assist people in crisis.<\/p>\n \u201cChief does not want anybody to be mistreated at all. Period,\u201d Sikeston Mayor Greg Turnbow, who is white, said at the meeting. \u201cAnd I guarantee you, I put my life in his hands. I\u2019d do it today.\u201d<\/p>\n McMillen declined to comment on KFF Health News\u2019 questions about Gilmore\u2019s case and the community\u2019s concerns about the department. The Missouri State Highway Patrol investigated the death and planned to refer the results to the Cape Girardeau County prosecuting attorney, Sgt. Bradley Germann said.<\/p>\n Lloyd Gilmore\u2019s friends Tawanna and Willie Wilson wore custom T-shirts to his funeral. (Cara Anthony\/KFF Health News)<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tAndre Young and his 5-year-old son view Gilmore\u2019s body during the funeral.\t\t\t\t\t\t (Cara Anthony\/KFF Health News)<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tCynthia Gilmore sits in the front row of her son\u2019s funeral at Cornerstone Baptist Church.\t\t\t\t\t\t (Cara Anthony\/KFF Health News)<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n The day Gilmore died, his daughter said, he had been anxious and was looking for a \u201csafe space.\u201d So, she said, he had spent much of the day watching her braid hair at the salon where she works, then he went with her to her eyelash extension appointment. Lania Gilmore said he was still feeling undone, but she needed some space, so he asked her to call the police instead. She said she did, then she watched him run toward the police station.<\/p>\n The rest unfolded within 30 minutes, according to the police report and 911 call logs<\/a>. The police report said that, amid an ensuing scuffle, Gilmore bit one officer\u2019s hand \u2014 \u201cbut did not break the skin.\u201d<\/p>\n After the police stunned and restrained Gilmore, a paramedic gave him a sedative, and the emergency medical services took him to a hospital, according to the police report. The report listed five victims \u2014 all police \u2014 and accused Gilmore of third-degree assault and resisting arrest.<\/p>\n Lania Gilmore said police told her that her father overdosed. But she said she doesn\u2019t understand how that would have been possible, given the short time between when he left her and an ambulance was called.<\/p>\n The city\u2019s police force knew Gilmore had mental health issues, his daughter said. Police officers in a neighboring community \u201cexcessively tased\u201d and beat him in 2020, court<\/a> records show<\/a>. He received a $65,000 settlement five years later, and she said that experience left a mark.<\/p>\n After Gilmore died, Louis Houston, a longtime Sikeston resident, said he decided to move 30 minutes outside the city to a neighboring community, where he feels safer. He said hearing about other Black Sikeston residents being harassed by the police department had started to affect his mental health.<\/p>\n \u201cI got on away from here,\u201d said Houston, who returned to Sikeston for the funeral.<\/p>\n Louis Houston moved to Sikeston almost 20 years ago but recently decided to move away after Lloyd Gilmore died in police custody. He says the way the police department treats Black residents was affecting his mental health. (Cara Anthony\/KFF Health News)<\/p>\n Houston\u2019s already thinking about the conversations he will have with his young children about how to respond<\/a> if they ever interact with a police officer. He has a script in mind.<\/p>\n \u201cBe careful,\u201d Houston plans to tell them. \u201cThey can help you, but they also can kill you.\u201d<\/p>\n Related Article<\/strong><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n \t\t<\/p>\n Every family has secrets. I spent the past few years reporting about racial violence in Sikeston, Missouri. Interviewing Black families there helped me uncover my family\u2019s traumatic past, too.<\/p>\n KFF Health News<\/a> is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF\u2014an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n This article<\/a> first appeared on KFF Health News<\/a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SIKESTON, Mo. \u2014 Not everyone at Lloyd Gilmore\u2019s funeral knew him well. One woman, who had ironed her clothes two days in advance, said she just wanted to be there for his family. School-age children, guided by their parents, approached his open casket in the sanctuary of Cornerstone Baptist Church and peeked inside. Other people…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":14685,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14684"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tSilence in Sikeston\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>\nWatch: New Documentary Film Explores a Lynching and a Police Killing 78 Years Apart<\/a><\/h2>\n
No One Wants To Talk About Racial Trauma. Why My Family Broke Our Silence.<\/a><\/h2>\n