Black woman shot dead in her house in USA

[SofaTroubles]

I opened bbc news this morning to see this headline, along with a video, bodycam from the officers, of what happened. I was so shocked. She’d called the police as she feared an intruder and they went into her house so she could get her ID. One of them
mentioned the pot of water boiling on the stove and said he didn’t want a fire. So she removed it, and as she was talking to him he literally shot her. Multiple times. And killed her. I couldn’t believe what I was watching. I’ve checked mumsnet for another thread and can’t find anything and I just went back on bbc news to post the link and it’s disappeared.

That video is horrific, poor woman. There was absolutely no threat to him at all.

He has been charged with first degree murder. Pleaded not guilty. The body cam the other officer had on proves without doubt he is very obviously guilty. Hope the full force of the law comes down heavily on him.

It’s ridiculous how quick some US police are to escalate to shooting. In many situations there was an obvious way to get out or de-escalate. There are incidents of white people being killed in similar situations so it can affect anyone but disproportionately affects black population.

@AthenaBasil that’s not an escalation of anything.

It’s straight up murder.

And the charge reflects that.

At least officer been fired and charged - that doesn't always happen.

Many of their police forces have problems - not all and it's a huge place b- there ex officers and civil rights lawyers all over you tube highlighting cases.

One that shocked me most I think - was guy was sleeping had house broken into was shot in the head and police took him down station and started an interrogation - it's all on video he clearly unwell and saying he's been shot asking for medical help - he died and family got compensation after taking it to court.

"What was she apologising for if she wasn't about to do something?"

Appeasing the aggressor. Fight/flight/freeze/fawn - the "I'm sorry" was fawning when he suddenly started shouting , swearing and pulled a gun on her...she was (rightly) in fear for her life.
There's a milder version of it earlier in the clip when he says , is there anything else we can do, she says "No" or possibly "Nah' a bit indistinctly so he gets pissed off and repeats the question loudly as if he's talking to to a deaf imbecile and she mollifies him by answering "No, sir".

This is exactly why I never want our Plod to have guns. Why arm thick racist thugs?

"This is exactly why I never want our Plod to have guns".
Our Plod in Nothern Ireland have guns and they would have stayed in the holster the whole time during this type of interaction. In the bad old days 50 years ago they might have acted arsey in the lead up and pulled the guns, if it was a poor Catholic woman in a Republican sympathising area, but I very much doubt if they would have used them.

I watched the video earlier. It’s absolutely horrifying. The poor woman did nothing threatening and as for her language, I’d assume she’s very religious rather than mentally unwell. Obviously, if the officer genuinely felt threatened, he could simply have left the property. It was also very telling that he didn’t want the second officer to get the first aid kit. The one good thing to come out of this is the fact the second officer had his bodycam on, because without that footage the first officer would probably have escaped the murder charge. As it is, he's going to prison for the rest of his life.

It says she was also struggling to give basic info ,maybe she was under the influence of drink or drugs or she was suffering a mental health crisis
Regardless it absolutely doesn't justify him shooting her .

It’s horrendous and inhumane , I went on daily mail expecting to find a lot of apologists but even the commenters there were saying it was inexcusable.

This was a woman who called the police to her residence asking them to check out a prowler !!

Basically this :/ but I do think American culture contributes to it a lot too

This exactly and how is saying “I’m sorry” now some kind of evidence of ill-intent.

Absolute nonsense.

Anyone trying to allocate blame on this woman who called the police asking for help is very sick and racist.

It's all very strange.

Her behaviour is very odd and the police reaction seems completely out of synch with the situation.

There's probably more to it- it was a snapshot we saw and we don't know what happened prior to the cop shooting her. I mean, why was she in the kitchen with a pan of water and him holding a gun to her in the first lace if she was simply calling for help because of an intruder. Maybe they feared it was a trap?

She called them to the house because she thought there was a prowler. As the police were leaving, they advised her to take a pan of boiling water off the stove. The police officer shot her while she held the pan.

The Guardian said she suffered from schizophrenia. It's as if US police have zero training in mental health issues.

Or neurodiversity- I seem to remember at least a couple of cases of autistic black men being shot because they didn't respond in precisely the desired way when being shouted at by gun waving bullies 😪

There is no defence, it's horrendous.There is no equality before the law for black people in America.

Did you watch the whole video? It shows the bit before she goes into the kitchen. They were fully aware of what she was doing - they didn't just walk in and see her holding something they perceived as dangerous.

Awful ,I'm on an American Facebook group for parents of children with severe autism
One poster actually said thst was one of her fears she's a black lady with two severely autistic children her ,son is about 17 non verbal, still in nappies etc and she worries if the police are called for any
.g reson they would shoot first as her son has very challenging behaviour due to his disabilities,
It's sickening to think that could happen.

Why did this police officer murder a woman he was supposed to be helping? Racism? Misogyny? A combination of both?

He didn't do it because he was scared, that's for sure.

Truly horrific. That poor woman and her poor family. I cannot imagine the response of the police in the UK being anything like that.

I cannot get my head round this to unpick it and work out what might stop these murders.

No. She had set it down and was cowering with raised hands when he did it.

She definitely seemed unwell to me. Not remembering her surname - I was wondering if it was dementia but now I see she was only 36.

She was probably confused if she has schizophrenia, her thinking there was a prowler may have been part of that. It's so sad that he just shot her when she had just ducked down and looked like she was on the floor in no position to do any harm.

Shocking, not shocking. Poor woman. You can tell they were not happy to be there, the way they spoke to her like an idiot on the porch. Glad he's been charged.

I just can't comprehend his attitude towards her, and why he thought he could even slightly get away with shooting her, or why he wanted to. He wasn't threatened or scared, he was intimidating and scaring this poor woman. It's just incomprehensibly violent, I suppose maybe fueled by a toxic combination of racism, misogyny, able-ism (in the sense that even in the short clip he clearly had a lot of contempt for her and her responses to him).

In the article I read, apparently on one of the recordings you can hear (likely) him repeating "self-inflicted" on the radio to his radio control, trying to suggest he wasn't responsible. He didn't get a medkit and he wouldn't help to try to save her life.

I must have missed that in the video as her arms and the pot were obstructed.