The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Carjacking While Pregnant

Posted on | May 30, 2022 | 1 Comment

Perhaps the CDC should issue guidelines on this subject, although most expectant mothers probably don’t need to be told this: Engaging in armed carjacking is not recommended during pregnancy.

This is a story told in three headlines:

Suspect hospitalized following
officer-involved shooting in KCMO
— KCTV

Witness says Kansas City police
fired at woman running from officers
in parking lot
— Kansas City Star

Kansas police shoot
pregnant Black woman five times
despite having her hands up: witness
— Raw Story

Notice how the headline changes from one story to the next, even though the facts (known or alleged) are the same in all three stories.

According to police, there was a report of an armed carjacking in Kansas City, Kansas, with the dispatcher broadcasting a detailed description of the stolen vehicle, including the license plate number. On the other side of the Missouri River, in Kansas City, Missouri, police located the vehicle in the parking lot of a Family Dollar store about 8 p.m. Friday:

Two police vehicles with two officers approached the suspect vehicle.
At that point, the male driver ran away northeast and two officers pursued.
The female passenger in the suspect vehicle, identified as 26-year-old Leonna Hale, then got out and fled into the parking lot.

That’s from the KCTV report, published just two hours after the Friday night shooting. By Sunday evening, the Kansas City Star had this:

A witness said a woman had her hands up moments before she was shot multiple times by Kansas City police officers Friday night in a store parking lot. Shédanja, who declined to provide her last name, said the woman was trying to run from officers when they fired at her. . . .
Shédanja, 29, said she went to the store with her three children to get gasoline and ice cream.
She heard officers start yelling, “Get out the car,” to two people who were in the vehicle next to hers. A man exited, jumped a fence and ran. Three officers chased after him, she said.
The woman exited the car with her hands up, Shédanja said. Officers told the woman to get on the ground, but the woman told them she was pregnant, Shédanja said, and couldn’t get down on the ground.
Police asked her to get down multiple times. The woman then told police there was a gun in the vehicle. The woman started backing toward a fence in the parking lot. Several officers approached her and had their weapons drawn, Shédanja said.
“She did not pull out a weapon on them,” she said. “She did not even have a stick in her hand.”
The woman ran three steps away from officers, Shédanja said, and police shot five times.

If this account is accurate, certainly it seems like a “bad shoot,” as they say, and the state police have been called in to investigate.

Why does Raw Story feel it necessary to insert the racial angle in their headline? We don’t know the race of the officers involved in this shooting, but the interim police chief in Kansas City,  Joseph Mabin, happens to be black, and he has promised that his department will cooperate fully with the state police investigation.

Probably there will be policy bodycam and/or dashcam video of this incident, as well as store surveillance video of the parking lot. If such videos are available, then we won’t have to rely on the testimony of Shédanja or any other witnesses to know what happened.

It does not seem, based on what we’ve been told so far, that this shooting was justified, but it seems safe to assume that Chief Mabin is not engaged in a cover-up of a racially-motivated crime. Therefore, all we need to do is wait for the state police to complete their investigation, then the facts will be completely known. Regardless of what the facts may turn out to be, in regard to the shooting, what will be most interesting to learn is why a pregnant woman was a passenger in this vehicle, which was reportedly stolen in an armed carjacking. Did she know it was stolen? Was she a participant in the alleged carjacking? The backstory of this crime must be fascinating, so I’ll try to remember to update if and when we learn it.




 

Category: Crime, Missouri

Comments

One Response to “Carjacking While Pregnant”

  1. In which I tell you, very politically incorrectly, how to solve all of Philadelphia’s problems – THE FIRST STREET JOURNAL.
    May 31st, 2022 @ 9:37 am

    […] Also read: Robert Stacy McCain: Carjacking while pregnant […]