WYANDOTTE COUNTY, KS – Charles L. Adair was a 50-year-old Black man. He was arrested on July 4 on misdemeanor traffic warrants. By the night of July 5, he was bloodied and dead inside the Wyandotte County jail.

The autopsy details how a jail cop violently dug his knee into Adair’s back and killed him. Adair suffocated, his ribs were broken, and his chest was fractured. There was bleeding in his back and shoulders. His eyes showed the telltale hemorrhages of suffocation.

But you would know none of this if you relied on the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.

The KBI’s “official press release” following their “official investigation” was a deliberate act of deception. It made no mention of deputies kneeling on Adair’s back. It made no mention of the broken bones, the bleeding, or the suffocation marks. Instead, the KBI — the very agency charged with investigating every in-custody death in Kansas — told the public their agents “did not observe any obvious signs of physical injury.” That is not an oversight but a brazen lie. It is a fraudulent press release crafted to erase the role of Wyandotte County jail cops in Adair’s horrifying murder, to obscure the violence, and to absolve the killers under the cover of official language.

But the deception didn’t stop there. In its final update, the KBI went even further, attempting to shift blame onto Adair himself. They listed “hypertensive cardiovascular disease” and “hepatic cirrhosis due to chronic alcoholism” as “contributory factors” in his death.

This tactic is as familiar as it is despicable. The state has a long record of lying to the public after killing Black people. When Eric Garner was strangled to death by NYPD, the medical report initially noted “no damage to the windpipe,” a bureaucratic way of minimizing what everyone saw on camera as he cried out, “I can’t breathe.” When George Floyd was strangled to death for over 8 minutes on camera in front of the world in Minneapolis, the first police statement described his death as a “medical incident during police interaction.”

Time and again, “official” police stories erase the violence, blame the victim’s body, and sanitize murder into paperwork.

The Timeline They Tried to Bury

On July 5, around 8:30 p.m., Adair was treated in the jail’s infirmary for a leg wound. Deputies say he “caused a disturbance” on the way back. They handcuffed him, forced him into a chair, and forced him into his cell. There, they shoved him onto a bunk. One officer drove a knee into his back. At 8:37 p.m., staff called medical personnel. At 9:19 p.m., Charles was pronounced dead.

The KBI claimed their agents “did not observe any obvious signs of physical injury.” That statement collapses under even the most basic scrutiny. The autopsy makes the reality undeniable: broken ribs, a fractured chest, internal bleeding, and suffocation hemorrhages in his eyes. These are not subtle and certainly not invisible.

The Bigger Truth

Charles Adair’s death is unfortunately not an isolated event. It is part of the everyday fascism we see in the United States, a country that cages more people than any other in the history of the human species, and where Missouri/Kansas jails and prisons are quite literally concentration camps. In Vernon County, it is routine. In Wyandotte County, it is routine. The conditions are not aberrations but instead are at the very root of the incarceration system itself.

And when officials lie in press releases, it is because they know the truth: the system cannot survive if people see it clearly. Under a fascist presidential regime and a Department of Justice that launders murder into paperwork, justice will never be delivered by the state. It will only be won by The People.

Refuse the Cover-Up

Charles should be alive. He should be with his family, laughing, eating, living. Instead, he was choked, brutalized, and killed over traffic warrants. The state killed him, then lied about how it happened. We will not repeat their script and we will certainly not bury the truth with him.

Wyandotte County jail cops killed a Black man named Charles L. Adair. Then they lied to our faces about it.

Remembering Charles L. Adair

Charles’s family and loved ones offered a picture of a man whose life was defined by love, humor, and connection. In his obituary, they described him as “a man whose laughter and warmth were as boundless as his love for family and friends.”

He was a devoted fan of the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals, and he carried a deep appreciation for music. Family members called him a “proud and doting uncle” to his nieces and nephews, a dedicated father to his three children, and a brother with an unshakable bond to his siblings.

“To know Charles was to laugh,” the obituary reads. “His sense of humor was magnetic, and his natural ability to connect with others made him unforgettable. Whether he was cracking a joke or offering a word of encouragement, his spirit lifted those around him.”

The post Wyandotte County Jail Cops Brutally Execute Black Man Then Engage in Coverup appeared first on The Kansas City Defender.

"Buddies," which premiered on Sept. 17, 1985, cost just $27,000 to make. (Vinegar Syndrome/Roe Bressan/Frameline Distribution)

First it was referred to as a “mysterious illness.” Later it was called “gay cancer,” “gay plague” and “GRID,” an acronym for gay-related immune deficiency. Most egregiously, some called it “4H disease” — shorthand for “homosexuals, heroin addicts, hemophiliacs and Haitians,” the populations most afflicted in the early days.

While these names were ultimately replaced by AIDS — and later, after the virus was identified, by HIV — they reflected two key realities about AIDS at the time: a lack of understanding about the disease and its strong association with gay men.

Although the first report in the mainstream press about AIDS appeared in 1981, the first movies to explore the disease wouldn’t come for four more years.

When the feature film “Buddies” and the television film “An Early Frost” premiered 40 years ago, in the fall of 1985, AIDS had belatedly been breaking into the public consciousness.

Earlier that year, the first off-Broadway plays about AIDS opened: “As Is” by William Hoffman and “The Normal Heart” by writer and activist Larry Kramer. That summer, actor Rock Hudson disclosed that he had AIDS, becoming the first major celebrity to do so. Hudson, who died in October 1985, was a friend of President Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan. Reagan, who had been noticeably silent on the subject of the disease, would go on to make his first — albeit brief — public remarks about AIDS in September 1985.

Five days before Reagan’s speech, “Buddies,” an independent film made for US$27,000 and shot in nine days, premiered at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco on Sept. 12, 1985.

A film on the front lines

If you haven’t heard of “Buddies,” that’s not surprising; the film mostly played art houses and festivals before disappearing.

Its filmmaker, Arthur J. Bressan Jr., was best known for his gay pornographic films, although he’d also made documentaries such as “Gay USA.” “Buddies” would go on to reach a wider audience thanks to a 2018 video release by Vinegar Syndrome, a distribution company that focuses on restoring cult cinema, exploitation films and other obscure titles.

It was inspired by the real-life buddies program at the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, an organization Kramer co-founded. At the time, many people dying of the disease had been rejected by family and friends, so a buddy might be the only person who visited a terminal AIDS patient.

The film feels like a play, in that most of the movie takes place in a single room and features just two characters: a naive young gay man named David and a young AIDS patient named Robert. Over the course of the film, the characters open up about their lives and their fears about the growing epidemic. It also includes a sex scene — something other early AIDS films completely avoided — in which David and Robert engage in safer sex.

AIDS packaged for the masses

The remarkably frank and intimate approach to the epidemic in “Buddies” contrasts sharply to the television film “An Early Frost,” which premiered on NBC on Nov. 11, 1985.

The film’s protagonist is a successful Chicago lawyer named Michael who hasn’t come out to his family, much to the distress of his long-term partner, Peter. When Michael finds out he has AIDS, he’s forced to come out to his parents, both as gay and as having AIDS.

Much of the film deals with Michael’s self-acceptance and his attempts to mend his relationships. Yet the production of “An Early Frost” was fraught with concerns about depicting both homosexuality and AIDS. Unlike David and Robert, Michael and Peter show no physical affection — they barely touch each other.

Knowledge of AIDS was still evolving — a test for HIV was approved in March 1985 — so screenwriters and life partners Daniel Lipman and Ron Cowen went through 13 revisions of the script. The real-life fears and misconceptions about how AIDS could and could not be transmitted were central to the storyline, adding extra pressure to be accurate in the face of evolving understanding of the virus.

Despite losing NBC $500,000 in advertisers, “An Early Frost” drew 34 million viewers and was showered with Emmy nominations the following year.

A quilt of stories emerges

“Buddies” and “An Early Frost” opened up AIDS and HIV as subject matters for film and television.

They begat two lanes of HIV storytelling that continue to this day.

The first is an approach geared to mainstream audiences that tends to avoid controversial issues such as sex or religion and instead focuses on characters who grapple with both the illness and the stigma of the virus.

The second is an indie approach that’s often more confrontational, irreverent and angry at the injustice and indifference AIDS patients faced.

The former approach is seen in 1993’s “Philadelphia,” which earned Tom Hanks his first Oscar. The critically and commercially successful film shares a number of story points with “An Early Frost”: Hanks’ character, a big-city lawyer, finds out he is HIV positive and must confront bias head-on. HIV also features prominently in later films such as “Precious” (2009) and “Dallas Buyers Club” (2013), both of which, like “Philadelphia,” became awards darlings.

The edgier, more critical approach can be seen in the New Queer Cinema movement of the 1990s, a film movement that developed as a response to the epidemic. Gregg Araki’s “The Living End” (1992) is a key film in the movement: It tells the story of two HIV-positive men who become pseudo-vigilantes in the wake of their diagnoses.

Through the lens of Tim Flach, exotic bird species, farm animals, and our canine companions brim with personality. Through books like Dogs, Endangered, and Birds, he highlights familiar animals alongside wildlife we don’t often get the chance to meet face-to-face (thankfully, in some cases). Flach’s vibrant bird portraits and projects centered around the human relationship with animals give us the chance to admire feathered and furry creatures up-close in striking compositions.

Forthcoming from Abrams later next month, Flach’s new book, Feline, celebrates our unending love for cats of all varieties. From domestic shorthairs to sleek purebreds to regal big cats, these beloved animals are captured in vibrant detail to illustrate their expansive range of textures, colors, sizes, and behaviors—and don’t forget the toe beans.

Feline contains more than 170 photographs, including information about different breeds, their evolution, and why they’ve captured our hearts and imaginations for millennia. “Flach explores this deep, sometimes one-sided but always enduring bond, revealing the many identities of cats—from their sacred status in ancient cultures to their viral superstardom in the digital age,” the publisher says.

Slated for release on October 21, you can pre-order Feline on Bookshop. See more of Flach’s work on his website, and follow updates on Instagram.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Vibrant Portraits in Tim Flach’s ‘Feline’ Celebrate Our Enduring Love for Cats appeared first on Colossal.

In the fall of 2022, The Kansas City Defender published a short, urgent video: a serial killer was targeting Black women along the Prospect Avenue Corridor. 

We had spent weeks speaking with community members and local leaders who were searching for missing women in the area. To them, and to anyone on the ground, it was clear something was deeply wrong. A crisis was unfolding, and no one in power was helping.

So we amplified what the community already knew: more and more Black women were disappearing in Kansas City, and there was growing fear that a predator was involved.

The video went viral within hours, generating millions of views and garnering national attention. 

But instead of investigating these concerns, local white media turned to the Kansas City Police Department to verify the story. 

KCPD dismissed the claims as “completely unfounded.”

White news outlets echoed the police response, labeling our reporting baseless rumors that lacked “evidence” and effectively silencing the urgency of what Black residents were trying to raise the alarm about.

Then everything changed. 

Less than a month later, 22-year-old TJ broke free from Timothy Haslett Jr.’s home in Excelsior Springs, a small city about 30 miles northeast of Kansas City. A heavy metal collar was locked around her neck. She said she had been abducted from Prospect Avenue, held for over a month, and that she wasn’t the only one.

What TJ endured was horrific. But her story wasn’t an isolated horror. It was the product of overlapping failures by police, courts, media, and the public that too often looks the other way when Black women go missing.

The numbers make this clear.

On September 11, 44 people were actively missing in Kansas City. The weight of that tragedy falls disproportionately on Black residents, who make up only about 27% of the city’s population, yet account for 55% of open cases and 57% of the 778 people reported missing since February. That’s over double Black people’s share of the population.

In this one snapshot, Black residents are almost four times more likely to be reported missing than white residents, and just over three times more likely to remain actively missing. 

Black women, who make up just 14% of Kansas City’s population, represent 32% of reported cases and 22% of active cases. Since February, Black women have been 3.5 times more likely to be reported missing than white women. Black women are also more than twice as likely to be missing today.

TJ’s story is part of a larger pattern. And like too many other cases involving Black women, it faded quickly from the headlines.

But we never stopped following the story.

Our Investigation Continues

For nearly three years, we’ve been sitting in courtrooms, combing through public records, walking neighborhoods, and talking with the people most impacted by an epidemic that rarely makes headlines: Black women disappearing in plain sight.

Vaughan Harrison, creator of the Fountain City Files podcast, began investigating Haslett’s case in 2022, building timelines, tracking court proceedings, and archiving the slow movement of the legal system. 

Mili Mansaray, senior editor at The Defender, was reporting on missing Black people for The Beacon KC—compiling data and speaking with families, survivors, and community members who’ve been ignored for years.

So while national attention faded, we stayed with the story. And what we found was deeper, darker, and more widespread than we imagined.

Now, we’re joining forces with The Excelsior Citizen, local organizers, and those most directly impacted to build a project that exposes the systems allowing this violence to go unacknowledged, unpunished, and often unspoken.

This work will culminate in the launch of Fountain City Files: Vanishing Point, a long-form investigative series and podcast that explores the crisis of missing Black women in Kansas City and the Midwest. This series will center the voices of survivors, families, and communities pushing back against systemic neglect.

We’ll also publish articles, host listening sessions, and launch a campaign to support victims and their families.

To begin, we’re releasing an interactive timeline that maps the key events surrounding the Haslett case, local disappearances, and the institutional failures that connect them. It will grow as our investigation unfolds.

Where We Go From Here

As Haslett’s trial begins on December 1, TJ—the woman who survived him—is still trying to rebuild her life. And she’s not alone.

This is not just the story of one man. It’s the story of a system that allowed him to exist.

And it is not about one woman, but instead a culture that devalues Black women. A legal process that delays or prevents justice. A public safety model that waits until harm is irreversible. 

But this story is also about community, resistance, and the people fighting every day to bring their loved ones home and keep their neighborhoods safe.

This is just our first installment in an ongoing series. There’s more to come in the lead-up to Haslett’s trial.

If you’ve lost someone, know something, or want to share your story—we’re listening.

Please submit tips and testimonies here or email info@fountaincityfiles.com

The post Black Women Are Still Missing. We Haven’t Forgotten. appeared first on The Kansas City Defender.

Our bookshelves have always had a story to tell. The wood was used in an Iowa warehouse for years, giving it the extra character you can’t find at Home Depot. Kate’s dad hauled those boards 200 miles so we could save money furnishing the store. We pulled dozens of nails out of each 12-ft board, sanding them down to build our bookshelves in the driveway on nights and weekends.

18 months later, I guess they’ve earned another story to tell.

Photo credit Mike Frizzell, Johnson County Post.

About the Fire

In the early morning of August 14, an electrical fire started at The Torreador restaurant next door. Luckily, a patrolman drove past shortly after, saw the smoke and fire, and called the fire department. They were able to put the fire out quickly, saving our building that has stood since the 1950’s.

A fire hose puts out a lot of water, though, and much of it ended up in our bookstore. We also share a wall with the restaurant, so everything inside our store was layered with soot and ash from the fire. Our inventory was ruined and toxic smoke fumes worked their way into our personal belongings and electronics. The firefighters had to bust through our front and back doors to quell the fire.

Shocking News

I learned about the fire when a police officer banged our door at 5:30am. Not a great feeling – you know that.

Somebody is dead, I thought.

“Does Katie live here?”

I looked over to see if her car was in the drive. Kate’s not dead, I thought, my mind was swirling. She was just inside.

“Does she work at that bookstore?”

“Yes, we own the bookstore.”

That’s how I learned what had happened.

I went inside to wake Kate and tell her there was a fire at the store, knowing exactly how much of our life – financially, emotionally, and physically – had been invested into that place. She drove over right away, in the dark. I stayed to get our girls ready for school.

What have we been up to?

We’ve been closed since then. It’s been 4 weeks now.

Week 1 - We waited for the building to be inspected and, after a few days, learned we could return, but that we should take precautions spending time in the toxic fumes. We got approval to turn our power back on. We took our most valuable things home to be cleaned and stored safely: gifts from friends and family, books and posters autographed by authors, vinyl records inherited from my dad when he passed, dozens of plants, and drawings by all of our kids.

Week 2 - We had to clean out the inventory and equipment, disposing of everything that couldn’t be salvaged – literally undoing the work we’d done for the past 2 years. At home in our spare room, Laramie began storing inventory and preparing for weekend popups. My brother, Blake, spent hours in the backyard wiping plants clean by hand.

Weeks 3 & 4 - Everything from the store is now back at our house – filling the garage, driveway, and back patio (I keep imagining our neighbors singing this song to poke fun). We are slowly getting things cleaned and ready to use again, with the help of several people who have generously offered their time, skills, or garages for storage. That’s one of the bright spots – so many people have pitched in, and most of them are people we only met because we opened this bookstore. Your world opens up quite a bit when you put yourself out there.

We are still receiving new book shipments, and on August 23rd we hosted our first outdoor popup. We can’t go inside the building, but our mission is to “Share the Joy of Books” and we are sharing the joy of books. So far, we’ve had two Saturday pop-ups and plan to set up every Saturday until we reopen.

What's next?

Everyone’s first question is, “Are you going to be able to reopen?”

Hell yes, we are going to reopen. We want this store to be around for the next 40 years. Even if we did call it quits, I’m not sure what we would do next. We built all of this intending for our kids to learn how to work hard at something and to get to know their neighbors. We want them to grow up here and maybe take over someday. How do you decide what replaces that?

Hell yes, we are going to reopen. We want this store to be around for the next 40 years.

We don’t have an exact timeline because there are several parties involved (landlord, insurance, etc), but we are starting repairs next week. It’s important to us that we open before the holidays, so that is the main goal.

To get back open, our building must be cleaned and the fumes mitigated, drywall and flooring needs replaced (checkered floors, of course), we need new front and back doors, the ceiling in our storage room needs repaired, and I’m probably missing quite a few items on the checklist.

But we are not afraid of hard work, and we will figure out how to get it done.

Photo credit Morgan Weber

We'll be back.

The first time we did this, we didn’t know if it would even work. We didn’t know if anyone would show up or care about our little bookstore. We didn’t know if we would be able to support our family from this or if everyone else was right when they said “You can’t compete with Amazon.”

But we've learned a lot, and things will fall into place faster than they did two years ago. This time, we know what kinds of books our neighbors love. We’ve made wonderful new friends who are waiting (very impatiently!) to help us put the shop back together. This time, we have a wonderful staff who will help stock shelves and be there to say “hello” at our grand re-opening.

These bookshelves will keep telling their story and we will see you soon, neighbor.

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Justin is co-owner and "marketing guy" at Monstera's. Follow his work on Instagram at @justinwieners and @hotdogdesignstudio. You can usually find him dropping off packages, pricing old books, or chatting behind the counter with neighbors on Saturdays.

In the wake of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk's fatal shooting, some political figures are threatening a crackdown on free speech - a cause Kirk claimed to fight for. Members of Congress, the State Department, and President Donald Trump have all attacked people who celebrated Kirk's death online or criticized him while he was alive, in some cases saying they'll use the government's authority to punish statements almost certainly protected by the First Amendment.

While it remains unclear who killed Kirk or why at a college campus in Utah Wednesday, Republican political figures all the way up to Trump have threatened retaliation against Dem …

Read the full story at The Verge.