Dozens of people attended a vigil Sunday night for a 30-year-old woman fatally shot by Seattle police as department use-of-force investigators probed how officers wound up killing a woman who had called police for help.
Just after 10 a.m. Sunday, Seattle police responded after the woman had called to report an attempted burglary at her Magnuson Park apartment. At some point, police said, she displayed a knife and two officers shot and killed her.
Relatives identified the woman as Charleena Lyles.
Family members said she was several months pregnant and had been struggling with mental-health issues for the past year. They said she was concerned authorities would take her children, one of whom they said has Down syndrome.
Family members arriving about two hours later were distraught and questioned why police had to shoot her. She was “tiny,” they said, and believe her race — she is African American — was a factor.
Caution: Strong language. Monika Williams, sister of the woman shot by Seattle police in her apartment in Magnuson Park Sunday June 18, 2017, reacts to learning of her sister’s death and that the woman’s children were in the home at the time.
The SPD has confirmed that both officers were white.
“Why couldn’t they have Tased her? They could have taken her down. I could have taken her down,” said Monika Williams, Lyles’ sister.
Police Detective Mark Jamieson said officers were alerted to “hazard information” in the system after a previous encounter with the woman, which prompted a two-officer response Sunday morning when she called to report an attempted burglary in her fourth-floor unit at Brettler Family Place apartments.
“Officers were confronted by a 30-year-old woman armed with a knife,” the department wrote on its web blotter. “Both officers fired their duty weapons, striking the woman.
“There were several children inside the apartment at the time of the shooting, but they were not injured,” the department said. “They are being cared for by other family members at this time.”
Family members said the children were two boys and a girl, ages 11, 4 and 1.
Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, in a statement Sunday afternoon, called the incident “a tragedy for all involved.”
“My thoughts are with the many people impacted, including three children and the responding officers,” he said.
Murray and police Chief Kathleen O’Toole said the shooting will be reviewed by the department’s Force Investigation Team and the Office of Professional Accountability. The King County Prosecutors’ Office also will review the incident and likely call for a coroner’s inquest.
Williams, the grieving sister, wept and yelled epithets outside the apartment, telling reporters Lyles had been shot and killed by police. Another woman, who later said she was a stepsister, Florida Carroll, wept uncontrollably and wrung her hands.
Williams said her sister had “mental-health problems” and questioned the need for officers to use deadly force.
She said Lyles had been arrested earlier this month by officers responding to another call after she had armed herself as protection against her boyfriend. Jamieson said she had a pair of scissors during the previous encounter.
“There’s no reason for her to be shot in front of her babies,” Williams yelled at reporters. “The Seattle police shot the wrong one today.”
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