Man guilty of shooting Wichita cops at June 2020 protest near 21st and Arkansas

Jurors on Thursday deliberated for just under two hours before convicting a Wichita man of 21 crimes, all connected to gunfire during a June 2020 protest at 21st and Arkansas that targeted — and in at least two instances struck — police officers trying to disperse a crowd that had grown unruly.

A Sedgwick County jury found Henry Parker, 30, guilty of two counts of aggravated battery of a law enforcement officer, 18 counts of aggravated assault of a law enforcement officer and one count of criminal possession of a weapon by a convicted felon, Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office spokesman Dan Dillon said by email. Parker’s trial started Monday.

Prosecutors Justin Edwards and Jennifer Jameson told jurors during closing arguments Thursday that Parker left his job at a north-side Jump Start gas station during his overnight shift and drove to an ongoing protest at 21st and Arkansas, where he opened fire on Wichita police officers in a riot line early on June 2, 2020. Bystander videos taken at the protest, including Snapchat footage of the shooter, and witness statements helped lead investigators to Parker, who returned to the gas station to continue his shift after the shooting.

Prosecutors in their remarks said clothing the shooter wore matched the outfit Parker had on at work that day — a white tank top, distressed jeans, brown shoes and a red lanyard — and that Parker boasted about shooting at the cops to people he knew.

Parker’s court-appointed defense attorney, Kenneth Clark, in his closing arguments told jurors that police had identified the wrong man. He said Parker left work to pick up a friend and rejected the idea that Parker could have driven to the protest and carried out the shooting in the short time he was absent from work, a little more than 10 minutes.

A probable cause affidavit released by the court after Parker’s arrest says he admitted firing on officers after a co-worker recognized him in video of the shooting that had been broadcast on television news and social media and confronted him about it. The co-worker told police Parker told her he “emptied a whole clip” on officers because a woman he referred to as his sister had been hit with a rubber bullet fired by police as she held a baby, the affidavit days.

Investigators later found seven spent .40-caliber shell casings on a sidewalk along a backyard fence in the area where the gunman was seen firing, in the 2200 block of North Janette.

Around 45 Wichita police officer and SWAT members were in the riot line and in armored vehicles when they came under fire around 1:20 a.m. in the area of 900 W. 21st St. Former Wichita Police Department Chief Gordon Ramsay said previously that officers used non-lethal deterrents including tear gas, smoke rounds, flash grenades and foam bullets into the crowd after rioters threw objects at police and refused to leave the area.

The unrest followed a mostly peaceful protest calling for an end to police brutality in response to the May 25, 2020, killing of George Floyd, a Black man, at the hands of a white Minnesota police officer.

Edwards and Jameson told jurors on Thursday the officers feared for their lives. Bullets or debris from the gunfire grazed at least two officers’ riot helmets, but no one was seriously hurt.

Parker, who pleaded not guilty to the charges but did not testify in his own defense, will be sentenced by District Judge David Dahl on Oct. 6. He originally faced 22 charges — two counts of aggravated battery, one count of criminal possession of a weapon and 19 counts of aggravated assault against a law enforcement officer — but one of the alleged assaults was dismissed because the police officer who was the listed victim moved out of state and did not testify at Parker’s trial, Dillon said.