I spoke with Lania Gilmore as she prepared to lay her father to rest. I learned as much as I could about what it was like to be her situation.
On June 10th, Lloyd Gilmore died in the custody of the Sikeston Police Department. Lania says that officers described her father in a state of “excited delirium.” The term is rejected by major medical groups. Nearly all deaths associated with the term involve law enforcement, and most of those deaths happen to black men.
Lania also says, she learned other things online. A witness made a post and claimed that officers beat her dad for several minutes. Sikeston, her hometown, is a home with deep racial divides. When things like this happen in Sikeston — it hits hard — especially when, this time, it’s your father.
With all that in mind, she wants her father’s death to shine a light. Lania tells me, the Sunset community of Sikeston struggles to shake off pains and hates that have been sticking on a long time. Though her father is the one who died in the hands of police, she believes the trouble to uncover goes further, farther, and wider.
“It’s not just about the beating. No. We can’t even feel comfortable in our own environment. Every part of my life in this community has been hell trying to make it. No matter what you do, being black around here, not even just black — let me not pinpoint it. But it starts there, because we get the worst of it.”
I sat down and I spoke with Lania Gilmore and Andre Young for about an hour. Much of our conversation surrounded trust, and distrust, with the police department. As were were talking about her feelings around the Missouri State Highway Patrol’s investigation into the incident, something happened — something that showed me a lot about that distrust.
Lania was talking about body camera footage, and reasons why it’s not released until the investigation is complete. She told me she understands it can protect officers who did not do anything wrong, but were caught in the footage.
“So having them safe, you know, that’s cool… He’s been sitting there for a few minutes, so what is he still sitting there for?”
I ask, “who?”
Andre and Lania say, in unison — “the police.”
“The police… there,” Andre points to a stop sign behind my head.
“Yeah, they are…” I say.
It’s one thing for a police car to drive by, it’s another when you believe they might be the reason your father, right now, is dead — and you are outside, with your children, enjoying your grandma’s lawn. So, you can imagine my shock, when not even 20 minutes later, another car drives by.
“You notice it. You feel it. You see it,” Andre said. “You see how they just ride by here. You yourself saw… why all these police? There’s something happening? That’s how we’re hounded.”
Lania agrees, but made it clear — she does not believe all cops are bad. This does not mean she trusts them or believes they know what safety, for her, truly means.
When it comes to what seems near-constant policing of her community, “you can’t stop everything, but you can stop something by respecting people first, by giving them a choice. Nobody around here really has a choice. Even the people who want to come out here and help, they fear us because of what they make them think of us.”
All that in mind, she expressed a deep love and care for her community — beyond the Sunset community. At almost every point she talked about race, she backtracked as not to exclude anyone from the capacity to experience hate. “It’s not a problem being black, white, or none of that, all of us matter. There’s a time and a place for everything, and right now, the time is for black people, because we’re hurt!”
That hurt is why she prepared a speech she’s put her whole heart into writing. “It touches every topic and the whole community is gonna feel it. I even looked up definitions of words… and how it messes with our mental just living in our community. The speech I have, y’all, I studied so good, and I feel like it’s the best thing for our community, because it’s not just about the men either, it’s about the women too, and I put all of that in there.”
Lloyd Gilmore’s funeral is June 26th, at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Sikeston. The visitation is scheduled for noon and funeral services at 1pm.
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