A prosecutor has declined to file criminal charges against a Missouri police officer who shot and killed a woman and her infant child last year.
Independence police officers had responded to a reported assault in November at an apartment building. They were figuring out how to arrest the woman, who was nonverbal and communicating with nods and gestures, when she abruptly grabbed a butcher knife from a bedside table and moved toward the officers while holding the child, Jackson County Prosecutor Melesa Johnson’s office said Friday.
One officer backed away, but the other was against a closet and couldn’t escape, Johnson’s office said. He fired four shots as the woman moved toward him with the knife, the office said. The shots struck and killed the woman and her child, identified by KCUR news as 34-year-old Maria Pike and her 3-month-old daughter, Destinii.
Johnson’s office said the officer’s use of deadly force “falls within the protection of the law.”
Her office also noted there wasn’t enough evidence to conclusively prove the officer intentionally shot the infant.
Hard to know what to believe. Without bodycams, I would easily think that the police planted the knife and came up with the story after shooting her and the baby. With no prosecution, there will be no court case to determine if the story is legit.
As far as I’m concerned, cops have used up all my benefit of the doubt. Without bodycams I assume they are lying. Always.
You signed up for a job where you have to make tough maybe life-threatening decisions. You take an oath to serve and protect. You wear a bulletproof vest that is also stab and slash-resistant. You respond to a call, the woman is mental and won’t talk and she is holding an infant. She picks up a knife and advances on you. Do you close the gap and try to disarm her knowing your core vital areas are relatively safe from the knife and she has a child in her other hand? Nope, you might get cut. So, instead, you just smoke her and the kid.
Knife threats must be terrifying. If only there was something they could deploy that didn’t murder people, like a taser or a net gun.
Pretty sure the netgun isn’t commonly on the belt next to the pepper spray and taser.
I’m guessing that police no longer carry batons or night sticks? It seems like every available option has a trigger (spray, taser, pistol) and all training goes towards how to shoot to kill rather than non-lethal CQC.
TASER seems like a much better option, or OC spray and a baton. Pistol seems like the worst option. They were pinned in a closet so I can understand the panic but damn…
They literally have bright blinding flashlights they can use to make it hard for an assailant to even fucking see them properly. They have so many options to protect themselves before resorting to a magdump.
Getting cut in the arm is still very dangerous. I mean there’s a reason people cut their wrists to commit suicide; your arm has a lot of things that a knife shouldn’t touch. There were likely better options in that situation, but this isn’t an ACAB moment; this cop likely just needed better training so they could make the split-second decision to use one of those better options.
As always, ACAB.
And the prosecutors.
I need to see body camera footage, but their claim is that she had a butcher knife and approached an officer who was backed into a closet, all while carrying the infant.
This doesn’t seem like a simple “bad cop” moment.
If there’s no camera footage I’m assuming the cop is lying.
Tbh I have a hard time believing any cop allows themselves to be backed into a closet. Never mind the fact he felt he had to shoot 4 times AND killed a baby.
If they were that close together one shot should have done the job, not 4.
when she abruptly grabbed a butcher knife from a bedside table and moved toward the officers
To be fair, she didn’t have any weapon in her hand, so the officer may have not had a higher risk estimate of her, so he/she allowed themself to get into a cornered position, while trying to figure out what she’s about.
It sounds like he/she was startled, and then when cornered, acted aggressively, out of instinct.
Sounds fair.
So if the cops then again identified themselves without screaming bloody murder, she may have dropped the knife.
I still lay the blame for all of it at cops’ feet where it belongs. They carry guns and ‘legally’ murder far too many people, then far too often lie about it, for me to give them the benefit of doubt.
So if the cops then again identified themselves without screaming bloody murder, she may have dropped the knife.
She knew who they were already.
I still lay the blame for all of it at cops’ feet where it belongs. They carry guns and ‘legally’ murder far too many people, then far too often lie about it, for me to give them the benefit of doubt.
Im speaking towards this specific one event, and not all police situations in general.
Hate for hate’s sake is not beneficial to society (either side).
Of course he did…it’s in Missouri, the worst state in the Union…but if your pregnant wife acts up, you can legally put her in her place with no allowed recourse for her. Plus all the other reasons it’s terrible
It’s seriously a gross place.
What the fuck
