Compiled by Seattle Medium news sources
Members of the community are outraged by the fatal police shooting of a Black woman that took place Sunday morning in North Seattle.
According to the Seattle Police Department (SPD), shortly before 10:00 am Sunday, two North Precinct patrol officers responded to a report of a waiting burglary call in an apartment building in the 6800 block of 62nd Avenue NE.
According to police accounts, the officers were confronted by a 30-year-old woman, later identified as Charleena Lyles, who police claims was armed with a knife. Both officers fired their duty weapons, striking the woman.
“The officers immediately performed first aid,” but fire medics arrived and determined she had died, the police department said in a statement Sunday afternoon.
According to reports, the family claims that the women was several months pregnant and had been struggling with mental health issues.
On Monday, Police released a roughly 4-minute dashcam audio of the officers discussing “a safety caution” and a previous encounter with the woman before they reached her fourth-floor apartment in Seattle’s Sand Point neighborhood.
On the audio, the woman can be heard discussing with the officers that there was a break-in. They calmly discuss an X-Box video game console being taken and roughly 15 seconds later, officers could be heard saying “Get back! Get back!” and “We need help” before gunfire erupts. A child’s cry can be heard in the background.
Friends and family held a vigil Sunday night for the woman. Some questioned why non-lethal options weren’t used in the case.
Seattle Mayor Ed Murray in a statement Sunday called the shooting “a tragedy for all involved.”
“Our historic police reforms, from de-escalation training to civilian-monitored force review, are in place to address such crises. This will be fully investigated,” Murray said.
Several Seattle City Councilmembers also issued statements on the tragedy, including Councilmember Lorena Gonzalez.
“It is tragic that on a day meant for the celebration of family, a pregnant mother of four was taken from the arms of her loved ones,” said Gonzalez. “The City of Seattle grieves for Charleena Lyles and for the loss her family and friends are experiencing.
“Sadly, this incident demonstrates why our police accountability legislation,” she added. “The City needs to do more to train officers in de-escalation, to continue to refine the use of Crisis Intervention Teams and to ensure that we do everything in our power to avoid unnecessary loss of life.
In a statement released Tuesday, the Seattle King County NAACP says that the event “should never have happened.”
“The Seattle King County NAACP is tired of watching Black and Brown people victimized at the hands of our police,” ready the statement. “We have a serious problem on our hands, and no amount of training, or protocol is going to fix it. It’s time to actually start holding officers accountable when they kill innocent victims; sending a clear and strong message that force of that kind won’t be tolerated. What unfolded on Sunday was an aggressive showing of force against a young, Black woman, who was known to have mental health problems.”
On Tuesday, Jesse Hagopian, a teacher at Garfield High School who was pepper-sprayed by SPD for no apparent reason after an MLK Day Rally, called on all educators throughout Seattle to put wear Black Lives Matter t-shirts, speak out in every school, and join an after school rally in support of Lyles family.
“As a Seattle Public Schools parent, Charleena Lyles was part of our education family,” said Hagopian. “We are wearing Black Lives Matter shirts to school on Tuesday to show her children and her family that we grieve with them, we support them, and we will stand with them in Solidarity.”
Police Officials say that they are still investigating the shooting. However, Murray said that the investigation will be reviewed by the federal monitoring team supervising the city’s consent decree.
Seattle has been under a 2012 consent decree with the U.S. Justice Department that resolved allegations of unconstitutional policing. Seattle officials agreed to an independent monitor and federal court oversight of the city’s police department after a Justice investigation found Seattle officers routinely used excessive force.
The department said Sunday that though this was a typical burglary report, “two officers were required due to information pertaining to this address that presented an increased risk to officers.”
