Home Video Captures Gunshots as Police Shoot, Kill Woman

[proud2BlibKansan]

PRAIRIE VILLAGE, Kan. - A peaceful Prairie Village morning was shattered by gunfire. Prairie Village Police shot and killed a woman inside her apartment Wednesday morning after police said she barricaded herself inside and made threats.

Police said they knew the 47-year-old woman at Kenilworth Apartments. Police said they've been called out there a lot recently and say all they wanted to do Wednesday morning was get the woman to a hospital for help with her emotional problems.

Home video shot by a neighbor recorded the gunshots that killed the woman inside her apartment. Police were called there just before 7 a.m. and say the woman was making suicidal and threatening statements.

Neighbor Gary Carson heard them.

"'Somebody please kill me,'" Carson said she said. "When she was out this morning when she was yelling outside, she was yelling, 'Somebody please kill me.'"

Police said they talked to the woman through her locked door for two and a half hours, but she wouldn't let them inside.

Police said when they heard noises that indicated she was barricading the door, they called in a tactical team.

"Once we had a key from the apartment complex, when they got in, she was armed.," Capt. Tim Schwartzkopf said. "They tried to use what I would describe as less lethal options, that was not working and basically officers had to use deadly force."

Police would not say what weapon the woman had, but Carson said he saw a couple of different objects.

more . . . http://www.fox4kc.com/wdaf-officer-involved-shooting-033110,0,5772961.story

[greencharlie]

1. there's NO question...

that law enforcement FREQUENTLY is a bit quick to the trigger.

[JuniperLea]

2. Poor crazy lady...

When confronted with crazy, the cops have fewer options... I'll wait to hear more before criticizing the cops in this case. Unless you've been personally confronted with the crazy, you just have no idea how wild it can get.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

8. I'm with you...mental dease makes any scenario unstable

Given that it was an apt, that further limits police options. Its a lot easier to wait someone out in a detached residence.

[proud2BlibKansan]

31. I want to know what weapon she was carrying

But I will admit I grew up in this city and I know these cops. It wasn't surprising to hear they had killed someone.

[KansDem]

3. That's just off 95th Street and Mission Road!

Not too far from where I live!

I thought that was an upper-crust neighborhood?

I wonder what the hell happened?

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. PV cops

Need I say more?

[Tailormyst]

5. Sometimes crazy just happens

We had a woman totally lose it here a couple years back and kept trying to run over the police until they shot her.

[REP]

11. 95th and Metcalf is crusty, but not upper crust

It's pretty much lower middle out there.

[proud2BlibKansan]

32. No it's not

Very much upper middle class. I can't afford to live in that neighborhood.

[proteus_lives]

6. Suicide by cop.

It happens.

It's also a really shitty thing to do. You want to punch your own ticket, fine. But forcing someone else to do it? Scumbag.

[TexasObserver]

9. Her barricading the door would suggest she wasn't doing that.

Why are you so quick to rationalize the shooting of a citizen in their home?

[proteus_lives]

14. I'm not rationalizing the shooting of a citizen.

I'm commenting on her motives and actions. It may have started out as something else but it ended as suicide by cop.

If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. Is there another source for the story?

[EFerrari]

22. The reporter in the video says the police were at the same residence

last night on a similar call and managed to resolve it. I wonder what that means. Maybe they got her to promise to be quiet or something.

Someone in a state like that doesn't keep promises and she was likely paranoid, too.

[proteus_lives]

23. Then I have to wonder, what tipped her over the edge?

It makes me think that she thought they were liars or had assigned the police a paranoid "enemy" status.

[EFerrari]

24. Yep. Depending on how out of it she was, it's possible she didn't even remember

talking to them last night. Having your brain turn on you like that is a really terrible thing.

[JuniperLea]

10. Do you know for a fact she wasn't mentally ill?

I don't think we have enough information to draw the conclusion that she was a scumbag. At first read, she sounds very unstable to me... there's a very real chance she was mentally ill.

[proteus_lives]

15. Maybe scumbag was too far.

But it's a shitty situation.

[EFerrari]

25. It is a shitty situation and I don't blame you or anyone

for having a reaction like that. This stuff can be unnerving, very dangerous and super destructive.

When Doug used to have episodes, he'd do awful stuff and people would have huge negative reactions to him, including cops, including me.

The thing is, the person you're mad at, at that moment, isn't even really available to be mad at. And that makes it even harder to sort out, I'd guess, for the cops who responded to this call with the outcome they had.

[proteus_lives]

29. It is unnerving.

I've seen people lose it before. You just don't know what to do.

What the cops with your nieghbor was great. I wish they could make that SOP for the entire country.

I have relatives who were LEOs and this is one of the situations they feared the worse. The police have to defend themselves but they have to balance it out with trying to save people like this woman.

[EFerrari]

30. There has been an attempt to train for crisis intervention

and specifically for mental health calls since the 80s, iirc. But, CIT is special training and you have to wonder what all this economic crisis does to funding for that program. Like it or not, the police are our front line of mental health intervention and most of them have to deal with it without being trained to do that. It's ridiculous already.

[proud2BlibKansan]

26. I don't think so

Sounds like she was mentally ill.

[asdjrocky]

7. A tactical team?

Must have been one dangerous 47 year old woman. I imagine she must have had a gun, or a bomb, right?

Funny the police won't release the type of weapon, kind of makes you wonder.

[rabs]

13. Neighbor in the video

says she appeared to have a broomstick or a baseball bat in her hands. And a telephone, talking.

:shrug:

[arcadian]

12. The cop defenders in this thread are disgusting.

Mentally ill woman barricaded inside house and people are okay with the cops murdering her?

[proteus_lives]

16. How is it murder?

Do you have access to a source the rest of us don't?

If not, where does the claim of murder come from?

[trumad]

18. Well---if she only had a broom handle

and they shot her dead--- yeah---I'd say it's murder.

Let's wait and see what the weapon was.

[proteus_lives]

20. Agreed, let wait and see.

It's murder if she was standing there and they shot her. It's not if she was coming at them with something.

[walldude]

17. I'm with you, if she was barricaded alone in her house

she wasn't much of a danger to anyone but herself... What the hell happened to tear gas?

I'm not anti-cop but this seems a bit much, the Branch Davidians were armed to the teeth and barricaded inside for 51 days before the government moved in. THey couldn't wait a few hours, or a day to see if she cooled off?

[madokie]

19. killing her was not necessary

this is so wrong on so many levels.

[EFerrari]

21. Two years ago, I had to call the cops on a bi-polar neighbor

who had lost her stuff and was charging people on our block. And I was so afraid it would go bad. But the SFPD in that precinct brought a PSYCHOLOGIST with them. I don't know how they did it because she was also high and combative but they secured her without injury and took her to SF General.

The psychologist probably knew that she was paranoid as hell and knew how to talk to her.

What a concept.

[omega minimo]

27. SFPD is relatively humane

if not enlightened, ain't it? Almost like the public is actual people?

[EFerrari]

28. Some precincts are more so than others. But ours was, that's for sure.

It must horrible to hear your neighbor getting shot in your building.

[Echo In Light]

33. Police would not say what weapon the woman had, but Carson said he saw a couple of different objects

Translation: non lethal objects?