Missouri cops allegedly shot a girl 5 occasions as she tried to flee her arrest for a suspected armed carjacking — however on Tuesday denied preliminary studies that she had been unarmed and pregnant.
Leonna Hale, 26, had been filmed laying in a pool of blood Friday night time after being shot in Kansas Metropolis by officers responding to studies of an armed carjacking, officers confirmed to KCTV
“They shot her! Oh my God, they shot her!” a girl repeatedly cried out in footage she filmed and shared on Fb.
“What the f–okay!” she gasped as she filmed the shot girl on the bottom. “Oh my God, they shot her and so they nonetheless placing her in handcuffs!”
The witness, who solely gave the identify Shédanja, advised the Kansas Metropolis Star that the shot girl had shouted out to cops that she was pregnant — and had held her fingers within the air to show she was unarmed.
“She didn't pull out a weapon on them,” Shédanja insisted to The Star. “She didn't also have a stick in her hand.”
Amid escalating outrage, the native paper demanded solutions to a flurry of unanswered questions within the case as Hale nonetheless recovered in a hospital, the place she was listed in secure situation Tuesday.
“When officers beneath your command shoot a girl beneath questionable circumstances, we want extra substance and fewer cop communicate,” opinion author Toriano Porter wrote.
Later Tuesday — practically 4 full days after the taking pictures — investigators began denying probably the most troubling claims, that she had been pregnant and unarmed.
“Sure, she was armed with a handgun, holding the gun in her hand,” Sgt. Andy Bell of the Missouri State Freeway Patrol, the company investigating the officer-involved taking pictures, advised The Star.
Nonetheless, the drive was unable to verify if she had pointed the gun at officers earlier than the taking pictures, which was captured on multiple physique cam, Bell advised the paper.
Later, a spokesperson for the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Workplace, which can also be investigating, additionally confused to The Publish that they “don’t consider she was pregnant.”
Nonetheless, investigators are nonetheless awaiting affirmation, and it was not instantly clear if Hale had made the declare, because the witness stated, the spokesperson stated.
The Kansas Metropolis Police Division’s interim police chief, Joseph Mabin, advised KCTV that his officers “by no means need to be in these kind of conditions.”
“This can be a vacation weekend. It’s time for pals. Not a time for violence,” he had advised the outlet Friday.
The male driver who allegedly fled was not instantly recognized. He was busted after a chase and likewise taken to a hospital for an unrelated medical difficulty, the native studies stated.
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