Woman Shot 5 Times By Police
Police shot a 26-year-old black woman five times who is allegedly pregnant as they searched for a vehicle involved in an armed car jacking.
Kansas City police fired at Leonna Hale five times after she told them there was a gun in the car and as a man who was with her fled just before 8 pm on Friday.
According to the eyewitness, the suspect had been trying to cooperate before she was gunned down and handcuffed on the ground as blood spilled through her white t-shirt.
She was rushed to the hospital after the incident but was in a stable condition. The man, who was said to be her boyfriend, was also taken in by medics on an unrelated medical issue.
the police said a gun was recovered from near the car – but it was not clear if the woman had been holding it – and they had launched a full investigation into the matter while the two officers involved proceeded on administrative leave.
Dramatic footage shows Hale being cuffed on the ground as she started to bleed from gunshot wounds at a Family Dollar store in Kansas City.
They repeated claims from the woman that she was pregnant, with one claiming: ‘She did not pull out a weapon on them.’
One witness called She Danja and a medical assistant and slammed officers for their handling of the incident, “She did not pull out a weapon on them. She did not even have a stick in her hand, She said the officers then fired at Hale five times. One, two, three, four five. I remember it because it didn’t stop. They shot five times. I remember seeing her hit the ground and I froze.”
She said she had been getting gas and ice cream from a nearby service station when she saw the incident and heard gunshots.
She added, that she first heard officers yelling ‘get out of the car’ to two people who were in the vehicle parked next to hers, and the male driver run before Hale exited her vehicle with her hands up.
The officers surround her and ask her to get on the ground but she allegedly said she was pregnant and could not lie down.
Hale later said there was a gun in the vehicle and she started backing towards a fence in the parking lot before police drew their weapons.
Authorities said police in two cars were following up on a call about an armed carjacking after dispatchers provided them with a description of the vehicle and license plate.
The officers reach the car with two suspects inside the parking lot of the Family Dollar store at Sixth and Prospect Avenues in Kansas City and approached it.
But the male driver then allegedly run northeast as two officers pursued and Hale stepped out of the car and told officers there was a gun inside.
Two officers then fired at Hale and she suffered serious injuries and was taken to a local hospital where she was in a stable condition.
The male suspect, who has not yet been named, was also brought to a local hospital for an unrelated medical issue.
She Danja continued: ‘They got her in handcuffs while they shot her. She said she was originally from Louisiana and Arkansas and was just visiting the city.
She continued: ‘I stopped here to get some gas, and my son just watched this. My one-year-old son just watched this. My 10-year-old son just watched this. And my 13-year-old son just watched this.
‘She was fixing to cooperate. She got scared, she ran down there, they shot her. She ran and they shot at her one, two, three, four.’
Danja was quickly asked to move on by the officers but hit back that her sons were still in the store getting ice cream.
She shared the video on Facebook, writing: ‘When she got out of the car she put her hands up and was talking to them to show she didn’t have a weapon in her hand!!!
‘She did run three steps away when she got scared at them all coming towards her with guns in her face. That’s when she was shot that many times.
‘Keep in mind, they chased her [boyfriend] who jumped out of the vehicle and he was captured unharmed while she was left there in the street still near the vehicle she got out of.’
”I’m literally in shock the whole video!’ she wrote. ‘I’m a whole medical assistant, and it’s not how you handle a gunshot victim who’s pregnant.”
Spokesman Andy Bell said a gun ‘was located near the vehicle but did not say whether the victim was holding it at the time of the shooting, citing ‘intricate details that have to be followed up on’.
‘Everything’s going to be analyzed, to be scrutinized by our officers,’ he said, noting that they will review body camera footage from the incident.
Interim Police Chief Joseph Mabin, told reporters that the department would be fully transparent with the highway patrol as the shooting investigation is conducted, ”We never want to be in these types of situations – not the public, not the police department,’ he said.
‘Anytime anything happens like this, it’s a blight on our community.”
