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.
I hate how much the police worries more about their egos and asserting authority than de-escalation and service to the community. They seem more emotionally unstable than the people they are supposed to help.
If that’s the response from an experienced officer, then there are serious issues with the whole system. There’s a baby on the scene and still their first impulse is to pull the trigger. Fuck them!
this ‘news’ site is trash, fucking constant text disruptive ads
fuck this garbage, 5min and had to re focus text like every 30 seconds
The Internet nowadays without an ad-blocker is an absolute cancer.
I’m not sure if you’re on a PC or mobile but check uBlock Origin for Firefox(PC & mobile) or AdAway for Android on F-droid.
Vivaldi has a built in adblock even on iOS and it works great. Dont just settle for getting blasted with ads because your stuck with apple.
Here’s some other articles from local news stations. Not sure if either of these are better, since I use Firefox with uBlock Origin as well as network level DNS adblock.
calling the cops on someone in America is like calling a personal death squad that sometimes might kill you instead
This city sounds like a shitshow, Social Services came the day before to take the baby but no one answered the door so they just left? They didn’t even check with the apartment management office? My mom used to do that for a living and would always have the police come with her for any situation like that.
It obviously was a bad situation before the cops showed up, but the father was right to not let them in at first. This situation is exactly what the ‘defund the police’ slogan was aiming at, Social Services should have definitely responded with the police, really any time the police believe a child is involved.
My dad used to use this technique to settle disputes: “if you are gonna fight over it, neither of you can have it!”
Though I don’t recall him ever shooting a baby in the face so maybe these cops need more training.
Or some fucking lead to their own foreheads.
Is that too far? No. No I don’t think it is.
Sounds like the Solomon method, except they went throught with it.
Solomon method left you with more baby too.
Pretty sure that damn criminal baby pulled a submachine gun out of his pillow … The officer just defended himself. God bless him and his family. <3
What the hell is the context of that photo?
A prompt and tens of dollars of electricity
IDK I googled “baby with gun” and that was the one I clicked on.
The USA never heard of tasers?
I mean you shouldn’t tase everyone but at least if you shoot someone with it at least they are taken out of the equation with a high chance of survival.
I don’t want to defend the police here. It seems like they’re more than capable of defending themselves against toddlers and innocent people sleeping in their homes.
What I will say though is on the efficiency of tasers. They’re grrrreat, if you get skin contact with both electrodes, on the first try. But both prongs must hit, pierce the clothing, and get skin contact. Reloading the taser, or switching to the side arm, can take too long. There’s a lot of myths about what will stop a taser, and I guess that some of the myths are affecting cops in their choice of force method.
But going for the gun on a disturbance call about a woman with a baby and the baby’s grandmother? And shooting the baby? What, as the baby identified as an armed and dangerous fugitive?
Funny you say that…the same police force almost killed some kid with tasers.
Sure the kid would have survived if he got shot instead, right?
A punch to the face can kill, but more seldom than a bullet.
For sure. I just meant a weapon in the hand of a tyrant is a weapon that will be used against its own people.
There was an alternative option out there that I haven’t seen much of - it’s an attachment on normal 9mm pistols, that dampens the first shot with a less-lethal projectile. The idea is, if someone is resisting, you can use the shot and avoid killing them. If they’re playing Superman, then you still have lethal force ready in the rest of the magazine.
Police departments haven’t favored it. I assume, because they just gosh darn love killing.
Hear me out on this: Let’s leave guns to the undeniable ‘this is for killing’ variety. We need to reduce the normalization that it’s ok to draw a gun and this would only serve to have a stronger ‘gun first policy’ to encounters. I don’t want to be in a world where I hear gunshots and have to question if it’s non-lethal or not. “It’s ok. I only heard one shot.” Is not the next step I want to see.
Absolutely agree. We already have instances of cops shooting people when they intended to taze them. With that approach it will be “I only meant to pull the trigger once” or “in the moment I didn’t remember I’d already used the first shot.”
I have to salute the out of the box thinking of the idea though.
Oh, they use those when they want to torture you.
Was the baby resisting?
The baby was resting, but the cops were illiterate as usual, so…
“On administrative leave”, Jesus fucking christ, fire and prosecute those fuck heads. This is well beyond gross negligence.
For real, let them defend themselves in a court of law.
Sentencing guidelines should automatically double sentences for law enforcement and government officials, regardless of the crime.
“Wrongful Death Offender List” should be a thing.
And it should be run by citizens.
Ok, I think this needs to be explained because people don’t understand the whole “on administrative leave” thing. It’s not a slap on the wrist, it’s the first step they have to take to fire him.
Cops have unions. One of the things those unions have put in place is that most cops can not immediately just be fired except in extremely narrow and specific circumstances. Beyond those circumstances, there has to be an investigation. During the investigation, the cop is placed on administrative leave. Even if it’s super cut and dry, statements still need to be taken, a report still has to be written, and it’s gotta go through the whole process.
Now, do these investigations often get intentionally delayed? Yes. Do they often come out weeks or months later saying “cop did nothing wrong, everyone move along.” Also yes. But the point is administrative leave is not the punishment and does not mean that consequences aren’t going to be coming. Saying “Why put them on administrative leave? Just fire them!” is kind of like saying “Why fill out the forms HR needs to fire them? Just fire them!” It’s a process, and administrative leave is the first step.
Im fairly certain shooting a 2 month old in the head qualifies for immediate prosecution. What’s the report going to say, he felt threatened by the 2 month old rattling their toys at him?
No, no. We’ll just give him a paid vacation.
The passive voice writing in this article is as usual playing defense for the police.
Independence police’s response to that 911 call ended with the shooting death of Pike, 34, and her two month old daughter, Destinii Hope. Let me rephrase this in a less passive way. The response to that 911 call from the independence police officer ended with him shooting Pike, 34 and her two month old daughter, Destinii Hope, to death.
I’m not implying this specific author or newspaper are writing in this style out of malice. I think this is part of a problem with the culture in journalism, because most articles on police violence are written this way.
That’s an interesting observation. But, I can also feel that the point of journalism is to deliver facts about what has transpired, not to place blame, unless it is unequivocally true along with proof. It is however important to expose weaknesses in society, so that people don’t get away with murder, literally or figuratively.
Still, that’s something very interesting that you brought up. It could be just a style common in journalism, or more deliberate so as not to take responsibility for calling anyone out.
No shit she reached for a knife. She had every right to stab that officer to death after he blew her baby’s brains out right in front of her.
Your comment has the order confused. The cop fired because she was reaching for the knife.
Well look at you, licking police boots hoping you get permission to go all the way up the thigh!
Coombs and other family members say that Destinii was lying on her mother’s chest when a police bullet hit her in the head. Destinii’s mother also died, from a second bullet family members say came from the same officer.
Meanwhile, in the two weeks since the shooting, Independence police have refused to give any details about the shooting. But hey, you keep licking those boots nice and clean.
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)
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.
Yeah, if this were a criminal case in my country it would look like this: murder(+?)/manslaughter on the child (+) no justification, not in the line of duty (+), ergo (+); manslaughter mother (+), justification? Self-defense? Mother herself justified? No imminent attack, child OS already dead, but her attack excused. Self defense possible for the officer, but self-defense provocation at least carelessly, most likely on purpose = heavy reduction of self-defense measures to basically just evasion and restraining, using the firearm in excess of that = not justifiable; possible excuse excess of violence for self-defense, caused the situation and escalated it beyond anything reasonable, better trained and armed, not excusable = manslaughter on the mother (+)
This would likely get you life in prison (so earliest parol after 15 years) here. And I doubt this would be something any officer or DA would dare to burn their hands over to cover up, as they would be held accountable for that coverup or meddling and go to prison themselves
I swear, cops will shoot anything that moves, and then anything that doesn’t, and then anything else.
And then fire blindly at nothing at all (see the acorn incident)
The officer who fired his weapon was “a long-tenured veteran of law enforcement,” Dustman said.
So who else has he murdered in cold blood?
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The ONLY way this could have been Prevented was if that BABY Had a Gun and shot FIRST! But of Course if you Shoot a Cop you Deserve Death so there’s LITERALLY NO WAY for this 2 Month Old Baby to have ended up Alive (In America!)!
