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 saw part of one US police training video, and I’m not surprised by this outcome. They are brainwashed to fear for themselves and believe everyone is trying to kill them. Doesn’t justify the crime, but this could have been any other cop, and it isn’t enough to hold that one cop accountable.
If this was a war, this would have been a warcrime and the guilt falls on not just the soldier who fired the shot.
Was the baby resisting?
If you explode a baby’s head with a gun, let’s just skip the trial and send 'em straight to prison for the rest of their life because there’s nothing left for you in this world. Your humanity card has been withdrawn.
People like this deserve to be put in front of a firing squad with a target on their head to see if it explodes too, but I doubt it will because they probably have a thick skull.
Really? Prison wasn’t what I was thinking. Why waste tax payer dollars?
if I had killed a little kid, accidentally or otherwise, I wouldn’t have thought twice. I’d killed myself on the fucking spot. On the fucking spot. I would’ve stuck the gun in me mouth. On the fucking spot!
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.
Idk about social services in other places, but I had a buddy that was a social worker. His caseload was something like eight times higher than it should have been. Trying to get in touch weekly with people who don’t want to see you. You can try to prioritize to the best of your knowledge, but there’s only so much you can do.
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.
I tought this was on the onion
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.
Funny you say that…the same police force almost killed some kid with tasers.
Oh, they use those when they want to torture you.
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.
I would assume that if the police were forced to use this they would condition themselves to double tap in every scenario to get right to the lethal rounds.
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?
It’s only a problem if you think that you need to kill. And I mean there lots of different tasers, you just described one and then went on to say that it won’t work.
Not only that but you have to be a preeeety exact distance from the target, too far and you’re likely to miss a prong entirely, too close and there’s no chance you get enough prong spread for intramuscular incapacitation to take effect (think the difference between taser videos where they get the right spread and the guy locks up vs videos where they don’t and we get the “I’ll get you bitch” video lol).
(Of course as you said this situation likely called for neither. It seems to be a domestic between a 30ish/yo woman and her older MIL, unless one of them was armed this was a “hands” matter not a “weapons” matter, at worst OC spray.)
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)
Police readers have PTSD episode and shoot all the trees in the yard.
I remember that 😮💨
*Looks at Russian police*
Well, it only breaks legs and beats pregnant. There is a room for worsement.
I see some nasty comments on here. So I will add mine adjusted to the popo. The popo are basically criminal goons contracted by the city to ruin brown and black people’s lives. Every single day there’s gotta be some but of news where they end one of our brothers or sisters lives. Why do we let them do that to us?
Sure there are bad people who need to be in jail. Trump for example. But only the regular folks like you and I get to go to jail. Only our lives can be ruined. Touch the glass ceiling for long enough and you get to be slammed teeth first into the pavement for a supposed traffic violation which ended up with some baggies full of funny powder. Those fucking assholes are everywhere. It’s time to abolish the police and instead enforce some sort of social help.
My husband is brown, and had a cop intentionally try to antagonize him into responding emotionally so the cop could violently arrest him.
Used aggressive language, threats to bring him to the station, veiled threats alluding to a guy who had been paralyzed and left in a coma by police the week before. It was sick and fucked up. It left my husband literally shaking afterwards. I’ve never seen him scared like that. I hate that cop with every fiber of my being. My husband is a gentle, kind, and loving person just trying to get his car fixed.
His offense that got him pulled over? Going to the mechanic to get his car fixed so it would pass emissions and we could update the registration.
To folks reading this, cops will absolutely try to antagonize you and escalate the situation. Don’t let them. It gives them every excuse to shoot you and get away with it.
Cops can go fuck themselves to death.
My worst experience was one time driving with my old man. I was a kid at the time in 6th grade. Probably the shortest skinniest and we both are nerd types wearing glasses. He was already in his 50s or 60s, white hair and all. Anyway he was driving his old dodge ram which had a steering problem. Some might know what I’m talking about…you tighten up the steering one week and then next week it’s a little loose, like you pull straight and it either goes left or right. So you constantly had to turn the car left or right the entire time. So the cop naturally pulls us over that night 4 blocks from the house. “Why were you swerving!!”. My dad didn’t speak English so I had to translate to the office that was a mechanical issue. So I was like, I’ll get off so I can explain. I opened the door and this other cop who I hadn’t noticed just rammed the fucking door on my face. And I’m supposed to love and respect these fucks? And I won’t go into detail on what they did to my dad with his heart bypass, glasses and visible frail. Fuck cops. I didn’t turn into Elon musk and have my own musk flying rocket, super underground digging machine, battery making company or car making company. But I am a successful regular person and I don’t need a fucking cop in my daily commute but every day I have to drive exactly 20mph in front of a school or the cop will pull me over. I’ve seen the cop pull over cars going 21mph. It’s like dude, 21mph is still fine! I’m driving 16 to 19, just trying to stay alive. Oh and then there’s these other two sections of the road. One has a tree with dark shadows…and a fucking cop in there hiding. The other is a sharp turn on a freeway ramp…and a fucking cop waiting for you in case you like to joy turn into the freeway. Fucking cops.
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!)!
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.
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
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.
Let’s have a round of applause for the “good” guy with the gun.
Oh wait, ACAB. Especially this one. Can’t wait till we collectively forget about it so the PIIT crew (or whatever they call themselves, I’m not going back) can clean up by sweeping it all under the rug.
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.
Spatchcock baby cooks faster and more evenly.
Unfortunately that’s the only thing that will make them change their ways
They wouldn’t stop. They’ll double down on the violence. And the government will be on their side.
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?
