Monday, July 14, 2008

Cops Kill Woman Who Lunged at Officers With Crochet Hook - Part 13 in my "Shoot First, Questions Never" series!

A disoriented woman holed up in a minivan and repeatedly stabbing herself in the neck was shot to death by local police officers who thought the distraught woman was lunging at them with a knife or pick ax.

But the 45-year-old Maria Irma De La Torre had only a metal crochet hook in her hand, the Salinas Californian reported Monday.

Officers responding to a "woman acting strangely call" at 3:45 a.m. Sunday saw the woman "stabbing herself in the neck with a small implement." As officers tried to get her out of the minivan, she allegedly lunged at them with what was thought to be a knife or a pick ax and the officers fired. Cmdr. Kelly McMillin says the officers thought their lives were in danger. She was shot twice in the torso, and died later at a local hospital.

"It's a wrongful death," Diana Hernandez, De La Torre's niece, told the Californian. She added that De La Torre suffered from epileptic seizures but had no history of violence or hurting herself during seizures. She was taking medication to control the seizures, Hernandez said.

Source: Fox News

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

it was a mercy killing, she would have taken ages the way she was doing it.

Anonymous said...

@ CO - LMAO! Not right, but quite funny.

Anonymous said...

Lois, thats what I was aiming for. ;)

Bruce Russell said...

I'm amazed that anyone batted an eye at a "woman acting strangely."