Korryn Gaines, a 23-year-old black woman, shot and killed by Baltimore County Police
Baltimore Police shot and killed a 23-year-old mom Monday after she allegedly barricaded herself inside her apartment with her 5-year-old son when the officers tried to serve her an arrest warrant for traffic violations.
The boy was wounded in the gun battle between Korryn Gaines and police, although it’s unclear who shot him. He sustained non-life threatening injuries to a limb, family members who identified him as Gaines’ son told the Baltimore Sun.
The bullet exchange ended a tense, hours-long standoff at the Randallstown, Md., apartment complex. Gaines appeared to document the stalemate on her Facebook page, posting a video of the boy, captioned “My son is not a hostage.”
Korryn Gaines, 23, was fatally shot by police after an hours-long standoff.
(INSTAGRAM)"Who's outside?" a woman asked in the footage.
Police shooting deaths reach an alarming high in 2016
The child responded that the police are "trying to kill us."
It’s unclear if the woman speaking in the video — which has since been deleted from Facebook — is Gaines.
The standoff began just before 9:30 a.m. Monday when three police officers knocked on Gaines’ door intending to serve two arrest warrants: one for Gaines’ pervious traffic violations and another for another man inside the home.
Authorities respond to the scene of an apartment in Randallstown, Md., where a woman was shot and killed.
(MAYA EARLS/AP)Nobody answered the door, so the cops entered using a key from the apartment’s landlord. Inside, officers found Gaines sitting on the floor pointing a firearm at them.
Chicago cops put on desk duty after fatal shooting of black teen
The officers retreated to the hallway, and a man ran from the apartment with a 1-year-old boy, authorities said. That man was arrested.
Police negotiators arrived to talk to Gaines, but the woman continued to point her weapon at the officers, officials said. Around 3 p.m., she pointed the gun directly at an officer and said, "If you don't leave, I'm going to kill you."
That’s when an officer opened fire and shot Gaines, who fired back. She was hit several times and pronounced dead at the scene. No officers were wounded.
Korryn Gaines, 23, was shot and killed near Baltimore.
(FACEBOOK)It’s not clear exactly what traffic violations prompted the arrest warrant, but video from a March traffic stop appeared to show Gaines being pulled over for driving without the proper tags.
The mom recorded videos during the stop and posted them to her Instagram. In one clip, she told her son, who was sitting in the back seat, that the officers were going to “try to fight” her and encouraged him to keep filming if she could not.
An officer told her she’d be arrested if she didn’t get out of her car when a tow truck came to ferry it away.
“When you put your hands on me, I promise you will have to murder me,” she said in one of the videos.
Korryn Gaines, a 23-year-old black woman, was shot and killed by Baltimore County Police officers Monday after an hours-long standoff that also left a 5-year-old boy with a gunshot wound.
According to reports, the boy was taken to the hospital and is expected to survive. Authorities say it is unclear who shot the boy. Jermaine Bennett, Gaines' uncle, told the Baltimore Sun the boy is Gaines' son.
"We are of course extremely upset at an event like this," police spokeswoman Elise Armacost said at press conference, according to NBC News. "We do not like to be in a position of having to use lethal force, but this was a situation where our officers exercised patience for hours and hours."
The confrontation started Monday morning after three Baltimore County police officers arrived at an apartment complex in Randallstown, Maryland, to serve arrest warrants to Gaines and another man. Gaines was wanted on a bench warrant for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, both charges related to a traffic stop from March, per reports. The man was wanted for assault.
When police arrived, they attempted to gain entry to the apartment using keys given to them by the landlord. They allegedly saw Gaines pointing a rifle at them, and retreated and called for tactical support. The man in the apartment, who still has not been publicly identified, attempted to leave with a 1-year-old child. Police apprehended him. Officers then reportedly spent hours trying to negotiate with Gaines, who had barricaded herself inside the building.
At one point, Gaines allegedly pointed the gun at a police officer and said, "If you don't leave, I'm going to kill you." The officer opened fire. Gaines shot back twice, then was killed.
Gaines' death comes at a time when police killings of black men and women regularly make news headlines across the United States. According to the Counted, a database from the Guardian that tallies these killings, 155 black people were killed by officers in 2016 before Gaines. Black people are also more than twice as likely to be killed by police officers than white people — a phenomenon that has fueled a nationwide protest movement against police violence, united under the banner of Black Lives Matter.
It has not traditionally mattered whether black people killed by police were armed or unarmed. They have been killed regardless, and their killers are rarely brought to justice. But in recent weeks, two high-profile shootings that claimed the lives of two armed black men — Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota — have raised questions about whether black people are treated equally to whites under the Second Amendment, which protects their right to bear arms.
The National Rifle Association — one of the nation's most powerful pro-gun lobbies — is notoriously silent when black people, armed or unarmed, are killed by police officers. This despite very vocally opposing stronger gun control regulations after mass shootings, like the one in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, that claimed 26 lives in 2012.
The officers involved in Korryn Gaines' death have been placed on administrative leave, according to reports. An investigation into the incident is ongoing.
Unfortunately this is the tactics police use on ANYBODY...black...with mentally illness or no. It's doesn't matter. I remember years ago...police didn't negotiate with the mentally challenged...they just shoot em-ask questions later. The stuff they're talking about is on television or in white neighborhoods...but! In the hood, a black person who is suspect of something/nothing...is gon treated this way. Cali is especially notorious for that. And they've been busted so many times...it ain't funny. Baca is faced with his own indiscretions in handling police matter-mostly those that affect black people and latinos. But this is the climate. To the nth power....and so. What do you do?
But!
