The woman, Talisa Coombs, told Delaney she’d just gotten into what she alleged was a physical altercation with her granddaughter’s mother, Maria Pike, and called 911. Independence police’s response to that 911 call ended with the shooting death of Pike, 34, and her two month old daughter, Destinii Hope — who were identified Tuesday by authorities from the Police Involved Investigative Team, or PIIT, a team of eastern Jackson County detectives called in to investigate police shootings and use-of-force incidents.
The officer who fired his weapon was “a long-tenured veteran of law enforcement,” Dustman said. That officer and another two who were at the scene are on administrative leave.
It’s disproportionate response either way, and murky witness accounts, but the best interpretation I can read from the article is in fact that the cops fired when she reached for a weapon. That could get disproven in further investigation or if body cam footage fails to appear (can only imagine that happening if the story is false)
Have you just started paying attention to the police? Their story, nearly without fail, is false in circumstances that rise to this level of attention. Everything about this reads bad for the cops, especially their silence since then.
Bodycam footage comes out in a blink when it exonerates them.