A 20-year-old Kansas City, Missouri, activist who last week excoriated law enforcement in her city for being racist has received death threats and worries the police department may now be plotting to murder her.
Keiajah “KJ” Brooks became a viral sensation after video of her bombastic comments during an Oct. 27 Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners meeting exploded in popularity online. Brooks spent nearly four minutes eviscerating city officials, “reading (them) for filth” for being aloof to Kansas City’s struggles with police brutality.
“You age like trash when you’re racist, and subject others to violence,” Brooks told the commission’s chairman Don Wagner, a part-owner of the Kansas City Royals.
By Tuesday, the livestreamed Instagram video of her impassioned speech had been viewed more than 2.9 million times.
But the newfound internet fame has not been all positive. It’s come alongside a dark undercurrent of hostility. Brooks has faced harsh backlash from some critics for her savage takedown and took to Twitter and Instagram to share death threats she said she’s received over the past week.
She claimed a Kansas City police cruiser trailed and followed her over the weekend, trying to intimidate her. Brooks also shared photos of a suspicious vehicle without license plates circling her apartment complex on Halloween night.
She posted multiple photos and videos of encounters she had with patrol SUV 818. She livestreamed one brush when she saw the vehicle in her apartment complex and confronted the officer.
“818 has been following me all god d–n day, y’all,” she told her supporters on Twitter.
“I’m following you?” the police officer asked.
“818, all damn day,” Brooks shouted from her vehicle. “This is my third time seeing your god d–n car.”
“I’ve been in the car for 10 minutes,” the officer said as they passed each other.
“Is it a white girl in your passenger seat? I’ve seen her all damn day,” Brooks continued as the cruiser pulled away. “This is the third time. Third time I done seen your damn car. Third time!”
Brooks could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
On Monday, she announced that she was under the protection of a Georgia-based Black nationalist militia known as the “Not F–king Around Coalition,” or NFAC. She also shared a Twitter thread titled “How KCPD Will (Try To) Kill KJ: And How You Can Help.”
In the thread, Brooks claimed Kansas City has a well documented history of corruption, scare tactics, assassinations and terrorism. She said city officials will take aim at her for tarnishing the city’s image by shedding national light on Kansas City’s “murderous police department.” She then laid out five scenarios by which KCPD would execute a hit on her: 1) hire a Black man with no ties to her or the police department to randomly shoot her; 2) pay someone to intentionally stage a car accident by crashing into her; 3) kill her en route to or at a police precinct after arresting her at a protest; 4) order a Kansas City police officer to kill her during a traffic stop or random encounter; or 5) hire a documented white supremacist to do the deed.
Brooks offered her followers three solutions to help stave off the alleged murder plot: 1) record any suspicious activity seen going on near; 2) donate to her CashApp account to help her hire security; or 3) share her content to keep the pressure on local officials.
“They are watching and waiting for the ‘stardom’ to die down to make their move,” Brooks wrote. “It’d be idiotic to harm me currently.”
