An unarmed Black woman told officers she was pregnant just before she was shot multiple times in Kansas City, Missouri, according to a witness.
Leonna Hale, 26, had her hands up in the moments before officers shot her in the parking lot of a Family Dollar store on Friday night, a woman identified only as Shédanja told The Kansas City Star.
Shédanja said Hale was attempting to run away from officers when they shot her five times.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol (MSHP) said the shooting occurred as officers with the Kansas City Police Department (KCPD) attempted to arrest the occupants of a car in connection with a reported armed carjacking.
The officers had spotted a vehicle matching the description of a stolen vehicle at the Family Dollar at Prospect and East 6th Avenues shortly before 8 p.m. on Friday, MSHP said on Twitter.
As officers attempted to make contact with the vehicle’s occupants, a man exited the vehicle, fled on foot and was apprehended, the MSHP said. He was not identified.
The highway patrol said Hale exited the vehicle and fled into the store’s parking lot. “Two officers fired shots,” MSHP added. “A suspect handgun was recovered from the scene. Hale was seriously injured & her condition is stable. No other injuries.”
Shédanja, who had gone to the store with her three children, described a scene where officers opened fire on a woman who allegedly posed no threat.
She told The Star that when she arrived at the store she heard officers yelling “get out [of] the car” to two people in a vehicle next to hers.
A man got out, jumped a fence and fled, she said, and three officers ran after him. Hale got out of the vehicle with her hands up, Shédanja said.
When officers told her to get on the ground, she told them she was pregnant and couldn’t, Shédanja said.
Officers repeatedly asked Hale to get down, she said, and at one point, Hale told officers there was a gun in the vehicle.
Hale then started backing towards a fence and several officers approached her with their guns drawn, Shédanja said. “She did not pull out a weapon on them,” she said. “She did not even have a stick in her hand.”
According to Shédanja, Hale had taken just three steps to run away from the officers when they fired five times. “I remember it because it didn’t stop. They shot five times,” Shédanja said. Newsweek has reached out to her for further comment.
In a video she captured following the shooting, Hale is seen lying on the ground with blood on her shirt as other officers arrive on the scene and one appears to handcuff her.
The witness account of the shooting has prompted outrage on social media
“She had her hands up and told police she could not follow their directions to get on her stomach b/c she was pregnant. There is no reforming this,” tweeted activist Leslie Mac.
Britni Danielle wrote: “How many people have to die before y’all realize police can’t be reformed? Leonna Hale deserved better. We all do.”
“She’d have been safer if, instead of being unarmed and pregnant, she were armed in a school shooting children,” added Steve Cox, referring to the delayed police response to the shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, last week.
The MSHP said it had been asked by KCPD to investigate the shooting involving the department’s officers.
KCPD’s interim police chief Joseph Mabin said the department would be “100 percent transparent,” KCTV5 reported.
The two officers involved in the shooting have been placed on administrative leave, a KCPD spokesperson confirmed to Newsweek.
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If the damn people only followed instructions and didn’t attempt to run none of this would have happened
Just look at all the folks who got shot. Not because the police felt like firing their weapon but because some idiot thought they where above the law and did what they wanted to
Example
Read the details of George Floyd
Sad what happened
Ax murderers get a less a sentence than the Offcer received. Just another example that the courts want to name a bigger example than it actually was
Where do we get such cowards that are in uniform you think by their actions they were on foreign soil in a bloody war they can’t go in a school to get a idiot that should have been in a mental hospital but can shoot an unarmed woman that is with child
why didn’t she at least sit down? I understand not being able to get on her belly, but do the best you can and don’t run…what the heck? I was pregnant and police pulled guns on me. I put my hands up in the air and said…I’m backing up slowly….and did so and I was not shot thank God. Why was she with that jerk in the first place? I will never understand women who put up with men that are like that. It’s better to raise your children alone than to raise them with bums who rob and kill people and in turn, teaching their children to rob and kill.
People seem to avoid the fact that she was part of an armed carjacking with a gun confiscated and her not following directions and backing away to possibly flee. Pregnancy is no excuse that she can’t get down. If she can be part of a carjacking she can get down and lay on her back. Excuses, excuses, police out their lives on the line enough without having to nursemade a violent criminal. And for all those idiots that feel she ” deserves better”, you’d better learn what a criminal deserves right now. Obey the law or obey the cops or be prepared for the results and don’t expect tears over anything that happens to you if you don’t.
Funny how noncompliance becomes the fault of the officer once there are consequences. She refused to listen consequences served. And how dare you Steve Cox bring those children into your argument. You lowlife piece of crap. It’s funny how you all care about specifying she’s pregnant when it suits your cause but if she were at an abortion rally you could care less about that baby. Hypocrites!!!!