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Police who fatally shot a pregnant woman are sued by her family in Colorado

https://apnews.com/article/police-kill-pregnant-woman-lawsuit-colorado-39bb890fa3522cb0b0f8a910d578cc1f

The family of a pregnant woman who was shot and killed by police in Colorado have filed a lawsuit against the police officers who were on the scene.

Police who fatally shot a pregnant woman are sued by her family in Colorado

Destinee Thompson was supposed to be on her way to lunch with her stepmother in August 2021 when Colorado police, mistaking her for a robbery suspect, fatally shot the pregnant mother as she fled in her minivan.

65 comments

magnetosphere

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Snelling added that the agency later discovered Thompson had warrants out for her arrest and the autopsy found illicit drugs in her system.

Man, I hate it when the cops bring up this irrelevant bullshit. All they’re trying to do is make the victim look less sympathetic, and make themselves look less bad in comparison. Even if the officers had known about the warrants and drugs, these facts don’t make it okay to gun a woman down.

meco03211

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I wish reporters would flip this on the cops. "Two officers, with no active warrants, killed a woman."

afraid_of_zombies

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Go even further.

Two officers, one of which had 7 public complaints in their file, killed an unarmed pregnant women

GBU_28

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Unfortunately if they write like this they get no more tips from the police. So they act out of self interest and always write middling headlines

Slwh47696

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"Two racist, wife beating police officers murdered a woman"

sudo

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racist, wife beating

police

What's with the redundancy?

n3m37h

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Diurnambule

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Two officers, with two active affairs for abuse of power, killed a women

sawdustprophet

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I wish reporters would flip this on the cops. "Two officers, with no active warrants, killed a woman."

I've seen this headline a few times.

magnetosphere

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Ha ha ha! I would LOVE that!

reverendsteveii

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Remember when a cop broke into Botham Jean's apartment and shot him in the face while he was sitting on his own couch eating ice cream? Remember when afterward they had a press conference to show off the <1 gram of marijuana they found just in case that made him a bad person who deserved to die.

altima_neo

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Yeah they had no reasonable suspicion to target her.

Zengen

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Running from the police with an active arrest warrant while your high is pretty relevant lol

Kase

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Afaik, running from the police also isn't a reason for them to gun someone down.

TWeaK

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It's not irrelevant at all. It's likely the reason she didn't identify herself, which in turn led the police to believe she was their robbery suspect. Outstanding warrants and drugs wouldn't justify gunning her down, but a robber is much more likely to go on and hurt or kill someone.

CaptPretentious

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Or, the constant barrage of videos thanks to people having smartphones where we see cops regularly exploiting their position and maiming and killing random innocent people. Might also be a decent reason why somebody may not want to just get ol buddy buddy with the police.

I mean I for one have seen more cops kill innocent people in videos than I saw people die on rotten.com.

Rivalarrival

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When I have an arrest warrant out against me, I contact the courts and figure out what I need to do to get the judge to withdraw it. Most likely, they just give me a court date. They might ask me to go to the courthouse and sign for service of a summons.

I do this, because I know that if I don't do it on my own volition, I'm going to have cops and/or bounty hunters explaining the steps they had to take to arrest me, and that judge is then going to consider their testimony during my bail hearing. The more I run, evade, hide, or fight, the less likely I'll be released on my own recognizance, and the higher my bail.

That's the expectation in our society. We avail ourselves of the justice system. We demand that our case proceed out of the police station and into the courts as quickly as possible.

It's rather dumb to try to run from the police, but arrest warrants aren't issued by the police. You've got to be tragically stupid to try to run from a judge.

TopRamenBinLaden

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It's only felony warrants that bounty hunters and cops really pursue. You aren't being hunted for not showing up to court for a misdemeanor. Also, I have personally known people that have waited out their warrants. They seem to disappear in most states after about 7-10 years.

Rivalarrival

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Whether police are actively searching for me or not is completely irrelevant. They might show up at my home at any time. They might show up at my workplace. Any contact with the police triggers almost certainly triggers arrest: Being pulled over at a traffic stop. Being involved in a vehicle collision. Being attacked by a criminal. Witnessing a crime. Kids get lost, can't find their way home, and police return them. Neighbor complains about noise.

Or, as in this case, being mistaken for a suspect.

No, I'm not going to spend 7-10 years of my life looking over my shoulder to avoid a misdemeanor warrant that carries nothing more than a small fine or community service. No reasonable person would. That's just stupid.

She would have been arrested after this stop, not for the crime they initially and reasonably suspected, but on the warrant. She knew that, even if they didn't. She decided to mash on the accelerator of a 3000lb vehicle in the presence of officers on foot. She decided that endangering the lives and bodies of police officers was a reasonable and acceptable course of action. She decided that aggravated vehicular assault of police was preferable to paying a fine and performing some community service.

The expected standard of behavior is that she contact the court and clear up the warrant on her terms. She chose instead to ram a police cruiser and multiple officers with her car.

She was no Breonna Taylor. She was no Philando Castile. She had full control over the situation, and chose felonious acts of violence in an attempt to avoid the courts.

I can empathize with her position, but I have no sympathy.

BongRipsMcGee420

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Funny how "fatally shot" takes the sting out of "gunned down" or "killed".

ivanafterall

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"Murdered Two Innocent People." Allegedly. But also actually.

meco03211

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And it's so easy to get around that too. Just say "the Police killed a woman..." That is an absolute fact. Not saying murder which is a crime that they haven't yet been found guilty of.

cedarmesa

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💀

sunbytes

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"heavy metal poisoning"

"Haemorrhagic issue" (i.e. bled to death on the kerb)

reverendsteveii

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Officer-adjacent ballistic event resulted in a cessation of vitality in a non-suspect personage

They take your life in the street, then they take your humanity at the press conference.

plain_and_simply

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Agreed. Too ambiguous. Plus the photo makes it seem like she lived! WTF

girlfreddy

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@MicroWave

They murdered her because they thought she was a shoplifter?????

In what universe did it become ok to murder anyone for shoplifting???????

#ACAB always and forever

be_excellent_to_each_other

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Doesn't matter how small the crime is or how unthreatening the suspect is. Failure to comply is cause for any and all escalation.

"Ready for the pop? Here comes the pop!" Cops laugh, fist-bump while rewatching bodycam video of their dislocating shoulder of 73 y.o. woman with dementia

We heard about that first when it happened, and nothing at all was done when it was just some old lady hurt. (edit: Even with bodycam) THEN the laughing video came out a few days later and THEN the public outcry ramped up enough they had no choice. Only then was there any action against those officers.

magnetosphere

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see edit

be_excellent_to_each_other

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My reply wasn't intended for you directly, was replying to the overall point from the other commenter, but thank you for clarifying!

magnetosphere

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I am very appreciative of the fact that we had a misunderstanding but kept it civil, unlike on The Site That Shall Not Be Named, where it would have brought out the worst. Man, that place was awful. I love the fediverse!

sociablefish

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The Site That Shall Not Be Named

Assuming that the site name satisfies /R.{4}t/i, Lemmy < centralized [The Site That Shall Not Be Named] replacements < The Site That Shall Not Be Named

magnetosphere

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Oh, okay. Thanks!

magnetosphere

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But… but… she used a knife! She backed into an inanimate object! That made her an immediate, deadly threat!

Edit: that was sarcasm, folks. Jeez.

girlfreddy

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@magnetosphere @MicroWave

Pretty much. 😠

magnetosphere

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See edit

girlfreddy

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@magnetosphere @MicroWave

My apologies. I was agreeing with your sarcasm but should have made that more clear.

Sorry you're taking the rap for my lack of clarity.

magnetosphere

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These things happen. No worries. Thanks!

MicroWave

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Frustrated by the district attorney’s decision last year not to charge the officers, Thompson’s family filed a wrongful death and excessive force lawsuit on Tuesday against five officers from the Denver suburb of Arvada who were present when she was killed.

30mag

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samuraipizzacat420

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I don't like "the shoot first, ask questions later" mentality. I always thought a cop should be a white knight. They need to be ready to throw down their lives to save someone. A us vs them mentality, the fact the police are people and some have families and their own wants and needs will mess with anyone's line of thinking. Police have to be ready to risk opening the door to confirm a dangerous suspect before they use force to try and save themselves.

Mostly_Gristle

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Yeah, I don't know why so many people seem to forget this, but cops aren't supposed to shoot guilty people either.

thisbenzingring

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Judge Dredd was suppose to be cynical satire not something we actually want

ivanafterall

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Then maybe we should have actual standards for who becomes a cop? But that'd leave us with no cops. Problem solved?

30mag

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sociablefish

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So cops have the same IQ as users on The Site That Shall Not Be Named, right?

30mag

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girlfreddy

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@ivanafterall @MicroWave @samuraipizzacat420

Sounds good. 👍

QHC

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the fact the police are people and some have families and their own wants and needs will mess with anyone’s line of thinking.

Almost like they should be carefully evaluated and trained to make sure they can properly handle tense situations.

Police have to be ready to risk opening the door to confirm a dangerous suspect before they use force to try and save themselves.

Not if they are protected by every level of the system from any possible consequences. So much easier to just assume all citizens are a potential enemy and go in gun's blazing. Just to be safe (for themselves).

cedarmesa

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💀

be_excellent_to_each_other

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fact the police are people and some have families and their own wants and needs will mess with anyone’s line of thinking.

As human beings with families and wants and needs they should have the empathy to realize their escalations are going to end or permanently change the state of someone else's life. They are the trained professionals.

The person they are trying to talk to could be stupid, deaf, high, mentally challenged, terrified, in the midst of a panic attack or breakdown from other causes, or any of a million other things that will cause them to not comply as expected.

Once she was in the car, block her in, call for backup. While you wait for them do one of the tens of other possible choices I'm not taking the time to list right now to immobilize the vehicle without smashing a window and putting a potentially innocent person deeper into their very human, very biological fight or flight response.

TWeaK

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This isn't so clear cut, the police did try to ask questions first. They asked her to stop and speak to them, she kept walking and got in the car. They asked her to get out and speak to them, she refused. They broke the window (escalation) so she panicked and tried to drive away, smashed a police car behind and then drove forwards over the curb. At that point she's using her car in a very dangerous manner, so lethal force is potentially justified.

However the police shouldn't have escalated by breaking the window to begin with. They had her contained, she was no longer a risk, not until they escalated.

rh4c6f

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No one has a legal obligation to speak to the police. If she was a suspect, they could have stopped her before she entered her vehicle. This was murder.

TWeaK

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No one has a legal obligation to speak to the police.

That isn't entirely true. In roughly half of the states, if an officer suspects you of a crime you are obligated to identify yourself and provide your name. Colorado is one such state.

This lady partially matched the description of a robbery suspect who had threatened someone with a knife. They tried to stop her before she entered her vehicle, but were not able to. They had every right to ask her name and what she was doing, to determine if she was the knife wielding robber they were looking for, and she was legally obligated to answer.

They should not have escalated by breaking the window. However, once she started driving the car dangerously, lethal force was justified. Whether lethal force was absolutely necessary would depend on specifics we don't know from this article, but the legal bar had been met. The fault is with their escalation prior to the use of lethal force.

be_excellent_to_each_other

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This isn’t so clear cut, the police did try to ask questions first.

I appreciate your attempt to try taking a nuanced view, but you prove yourself wrong by the end of it.

However the police shouldn’t have escalated by breaking the window to begin with. They had her contained, she was no longer a risk, not until they escalated.

So in other words, it is clear cut.

TWeaK

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They shouldn't have escalated, but they were potentially within their rights to. For all they knew they'd surrounded their knife robbery suspect.

Like, the best course of action would've been for her to say she lived there and deny being at the store, and tell them she's pregnant so hopefully they'd realise she didn't fully match the description and leave her alone. Hell, even telling them who she was and getting arrested for her outstanding warrant (which no doubt influenced her behaviour) would have been better than getting killed.

Ultimately it was the worst outcome. While the police perhaps didn't do enough to avoid it and de-escalate, they were acting within their authority for chasing down a robbery suspect.

be_excellent_to_each_other

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They shouldn’t have escalated, but they were potentially within their rights to. For all they knew they’d surrounded their knife robbery suspect.

Even if they had, what's the downside to proceeding exactly as I described above? The suspect might live despite a failure to comply? They might not get to use enough force that day? Block her in, stand back, spike the tires. Wait for backup. She's pregnant, she'll need to pee in 10 minutes.

they were acting within their authority

And this is one of the myriad reasons that police reform is needed.

Edit: I realized my comment that I make reference to here was not in reply to you so you didn't see it. Here it is.

TWeaK

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I'm guessing you're referring to your other comment.

Once she was in the car, block her in, call for backup. While you wait for them do one of the tens of other possible choices I’m not taking the time to list right now to immobilize the vehicle without smashing a window and putting a potentially innocent person deeper into their very human, very biological fight or flight response.

They had the car surrounded, they had a car behind and curb in front, as well as 5 officers. There wasn't much more backup to call. They thought she was their knife robber, who was looking to escape and might go on to commit further crimes or even kill someone. Smashing the window to extract her is going to be a logical step at some point, the question is when that becomes necessary.

I also have no clue what you're imagining to immobilise the car. Shooting tyres out doesn't stop a car from driving, it just stops it from driving properly (possibly making it more dangerous). There's not much they can do to guarantee she doesn't try and force the car out.

Police reform is needed, but not over their authority in this circumstance. We want police to catch violent criminals who rob people with knives or guns or whatever weapons, to protect their victims. However they need much better training in de-escalation practices.

be_excellent_to_each_other

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I edited it with a link when I realized you weren't in that comment chain.

Police reform is needed, but not over their authority in this circumstance. We want police to catch violent criminals who rob people with knives or guns or whatever weapons, to protect their victims.

We want them to do it in a way that doesn't involve folks who aren't violent criminals getting shot to death though, right?

My inability to provide a scenario you are happy with doesn't mean there wasn't one in which this woman could have lived, even while recognizing that she, the untrained person, might not behave correctly due to fear or other circumstances. And when you have police who realize they could be actually targeting the wrong person, it seems pretty reasonable to bring the entire precinct down to surround the car if that's what's needed to prevent a wrongful death.

Roll back the tape a little and let her see 10 cop cars blocking the exit of the parking lot, and have a cop there with a bullhorn or a sign telling her that coming out is her only option and see if it plays the same as smashing her window. Might it inconvenience the cops more? Yep. Should she probably end up with charges for the behavior? Yep. Does it save a wrongful death? YEP.

TWeaK

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We want them to do it in a way that doesn’t involve folks who aren’t violent criminals getting shot to death though, right?

Yes. However in this case they had every reason to believe they had a violent suspect. The circumstance just has a very unfortunate overlap where a non-violent suspect with a warrant got confused with a violent one in the same area wearing the same colour top and roughly the same ethnicity. It's harder to imagine a situation where the police wouldn't reasonably think she was the suspect they were after, given her behaviour.

I'd be reluctant to call it a wrongful death, even. It was probably avoidable, however in the heat of the moment she was driving her car through a crowd of officers, so the officers have every right to shoot her to get her to stop.

It's very easy to sit back in your chair with the luxury of hindsight and say how things could have been handled differently - they could have had more cars, they could have surrounded her better, whatever. That doesn't mean that it's reasonable to expect all of that to be done in a high pressure situation. I mean, can you really argue that they should have done all that without arguing that she shouldn't have tried to drive away?

YoBuckStopsHere

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Thompson, sitting in her minivan and surrounded by five officers, locked the doors and refused to get out, repeating, “It wasn’t me,” the district attorney wrote in the 2022 letter explaining their decision not to charge the officers.

One officer smashed the passenger window with a baton, and Thompson backed the car up, hitting a police vehicle parked behind her. She then drove forward over the curb and onto the road.

One officer began shooting, according to the district attorney’s letter, because he believed another officer was struck by the car or being dragged under it, and eventually shot and killed Thompson. Her unborn child also died.

be_excellent_to_each_other

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Right out of the playbook.

Terrify and/or physically attack the suspect.
When the suspect responds as all humans do to being terrified or attacked:
Ramp up the use of force, and if you don't kill them you at least get to add resisting arrest or assaulting an officer.
No worries if you've destroyed someone's life, permanently decreased their overall health, or killed them. The taxpayers will pay the inevitable settlement, and there's almost no chance of criminal charges.

Otakulad

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Don't forget it mentions she had warrants and illicit drugs in her system. Because then that justifies the shooting after the fact.

be_excellent_to_each_other

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Right right, I left out the character assassination.