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Kansas DA Says No One Will Face Charges for Killing Black Teen Cedric Lofton

HeadlineJan 20, 2022

In Kansas, a district attorney said he will not be filing charges for the killing of Black teenager Cedric Lofton while in juvenile prison, citing Kansas’s “stand your ground” law. Seventeen-year-old Cedric Lofton was arrested in September last year and removed from his foster home. After arriving at a juvenile jail, staffers shackled and handcuffed the unarmed teenager while he was face down on the ground. Lofton lost consciousness shortly thereafter and died two days later. A medical examiner ruled in December the cause of death was homicide. Andrew Stroth, a lawyer for Lofton’s family, said stand-your-ground laws do not apply in this case, with Lofton posing no threat to the staffers who killed him. “They basically took Cedric’s breath away and killed him,” said Stroth.

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