A pregnant woman was shot five times by Missouri police as she attempted to flee and was arrested for an alleged armed carjacking, despite showing them she was unarmed and telling them she was expecting a baby, a witness recounted.
“They shot her! Oh my God, they shot her!” a woman who recorded after the pregnant woman was shot Friday night is heard saying repeatedly.
“What the f***!” the person expressed in disbelief as she filmed the woman shot on the ground. “Oh my God, they shot her and still handcuffed her!” notes New York Post.
KCTV said police confirmed that Leonna Hale, 26, was shot by officers responding to reports of an armed carjacking at 8 p.m.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol, which is investigating the officer-involved shooting in Kansas City, told the news outlet that the driver fled when stopped by authorities, and Hale was shot as she also attempted to flee.
The woman showed she was unarmed
But the witness said on Facebook that before turning to flee, Hale had “put her hands up and was talking to them to show she didn’t have a gun in her hand.”
Speaking to The Kansas City Star, the witness, who identified herself as Shédanja, commented that Hale had only refused to get down on the ground because she told police she was pregnant.
“She was going to cooperate, got scared, ran over there and got shot? It’s not right!” the witness expressed.
Shédanja said Hale had warned that there was a gun in the car. Authorities later confirmed that they found a gun nearby.
But “she didn’t pull a gun on them,” Shédanja insisted. “She didn’t even have a stick in her hand.
Children witnessed the event
“One, two, three, four, five. I remember because it didn’t stop. They fired five times,” the woman recounted to the media outlet. “I remember seeing it fall to the ground and I froze,” she said, adding that her children, ages 1, 10 and 13, were also traumatized by the sight.
For his part, Joseph Mabin, acting police chief of the Kansas City Police Department, told KCTV that his officers “never want to be in these types of situations.”
Marca
