Police Asked Facebook To Deactivate Woman's Account During Deadly Standoff (abc7.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from KABC-TV: In the midst of a five-hour standoff that turned deadly, Facebook granted an emergency request from the Baltimore County Police Department to take offline the social media accounts belonging to a woman who wielded a shotgun at officers. Baltimore County Police officers shot and killed Korryn Gaines, 23, after she barricaded herself inside her Randallstown apartment with her 5-year-old son and pointed a shotgun at officers attempting to serve an arrest warrant. Police Chief Jim Johnson said Tuesday that the department made the emergency request to have Gaines' social media accounts suspended after she posted videos online showing the standoff. People who saw the postings, Johnson said, responded by encouraging her to not comply with police. Videos posted on Facebook and Instagram appeared to show Gaines, who was black, talking with police in the doorway to her apartment and to her son during the standoff. The standoff Monday began after three officers went to Gaines' apartment to serve arrest warrants on her and her boyfriend, Kareem K. Courtney, 39, according to police. Gaines' bench warrant stemmed from charges during a March 10 stop, including disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. Authorities said she was armed with a 12-gauge pistol grip shotgun that was legally purchased last year and toward the end of the negotiations pointed it directly at an officer and said, "If you don't leave, I'm going to kill you." An officer shot at her and Gaines fired two shots, but missed the officers, who returned fire and killed her, police said. Facebook's policy says that it may grant law enforcement permission to suspend accounts in cases where there is a substantial risk of harm. Facebook has received roughly 855 requests for emergency disclosures of information to government agencies due to the threat of harm or violence between July and December 2015, according to their Government Request Report. About 73 percent of those requests were granted.

Comments

just how?

[quonsar]

how the hell does one get in contact with facebook anyway?

FB should did it

[arbiter1]

On facebook people were reportedly egging her on telling her no to give up and fight til the end. Pretty much pushing her to try to kill cops. Police have asked FB to keep a record of it all pending a warrant later.

Re:FB should did it

[Anonymous Coward]

A smarter move by police would have been to de-escalate by saying "ok, lady, have it your way," and rather than shooter her dead, simply ended the stand off by going away. Then they could have arrested her without incident the next time she actually went anywhere, because its likely she would have left her shotgun behind. Who walks around with a shotgun? This woman should still be alive, but the police seem to have no ability to understand this. Its madness how many people police have killed "cleanly" when the more ethical choice would have been to back off, come at them later when a low value, low risk suspect least expects it. Trying to arrest someone who is upset has a lot more drama and risk attached than arresting someone that doesn't see them coming. Police, by and large as a group, lack wisdom, and once a gun is involved, it immediately reduces the value of a suspects life. It doesn't need to e that way.

Re: FB should did it

[easyTree]

Is there evidence she had a shotgun whilst alive?

Re: FB should did it

[andersenep]

Funny how when a cop points a gun at a civilian it's not considered an attack.
Why not just wait outside the house for a few days? Nobody had to die.

I see a lot of news stories about unjustified cop shootings, but this is not one of them. If she was unarmed or just had a knife or something less lethal than a shotgun, that'd be entirely different. Perhaps things could have turned out differently, but if I was looking down the barrel of a shotgun wielded by someone just said they were going to kill me, I think that's a pretty justifiable reason to shoot someone. I don't imagine anyone likes getting served arrest warrants, but she could have easily suffered the indignity and lived. I can't imagine the cops showed up at her house with guns drawn. She is the one that escalated it by pulling out a shotgun.

About 12 years ago when I was working in a bad area of Seattle (construction), we rolled up on our job site right onto a dead body in the road. Police hadn't even had time to cordon off the streets, it had literally just happened. It was a crazy homeless guy with a knife, who called in the report to the police on himself. He had a knife, and the multiple officers who responded told him to drop it, and when he didn't they shot him dead in the street. That's an unjustified shooting. The guy had a knife, he was no imminent threat to anyone, but the cops used the fact that he had a weapon to justify killing him. That's fucked up. That's a situation where cops could, and should have handled things way differently with non-lethal force as needed.

This lady...I can't defend her actions. She made a series of very bad decisions, and she paid for it. It's too bad, but it is what it is, and I can't fault the cops for shooting her.

The real debate here is to what extent LE should be able to shut down your communications in the event of a "situation", and I can see valid points on both sides.

All these folks suggesting that people who incited or egged her on via Facebook are guilty of murder or any other crime are ridiculous.

Re: FB should did it

[Anonymous Coward]

I think most people are forgetting about the 5 year old boy that was in the apartment with her. There is no way the cops could, or should, have ever left that situation without the child. She was obviously mentally unstable, but those officers were putting someone's life above their own - that little boy's.

Re: FB should did it

[Pfhorrest]

I'm also white, in my mid 30s, no criminal record, don't hang out with scumbags, etc, and I have four stories about the cops in my small hometown in the coastal mountains of California to share:

First, a decade and a half ago, I was walking down the street when a cop drove by and waved me over as they parked their car. They asked if my name was John. It isn't, and I told them so, and they left. Then turned around and asked for ID, confirmed it, and left. I was left confused. What the hell just happened?

Next, a little over a decade ago when I had just moved out of town to the nearest slightly-bigger city, and used to come back to my home town to visit my girlfriend a few times a week, every single time I was leaving town I would be tailed by cops, pulled over just before I left town, wait 15-20 minutes as they double-checked to make sure I still didn't have any warrants out since two days ago (I never have, I have no criminal record besides minor traffic violations from years before), one time actually calling another officer who "heard" that someone with my (unusual) first name had a warrant out for him to come look at me and say "nope, not him" (AFTER running my license already). I have no fucking idea why they did this, just to harass me it seems but why me, some random nobody? Did they do this to lots of people, out of boredom? This sounds just like the kind of thing that would be called a "DWB" if I weren't white. (I've mostly had bad experiences with traffic cops before too, but mostly just the usual "money-making" kind of traffic cop behavior, only occasionally accompanied by blatant lies from them).

Then a few years ago I was assaulted by some teenagers in a nearby park after pointing out they're not allowed to smoke there (also, they're underage and can't smoke at all, but that part hadn't even crossed my mind). I called the police and lead them to the punks still nearby on the other side of the park and wanted to press charges. They said "we'll just talk to their coaches" and sent me away. No fucking justice I guess, even in the face of the most blatant of crimes? One of the kids tried to scare me with a "do you know who my father is" (I told him I didn't care), so maybe they were some of those privileged elites I hear about? (Also, they were also white, and neonazis apparently, as they called me a "white nigger" and "race traitor", what the fuck does that have to do with anything?)

Earlier this year I had a complete fucking meltdown in my house from an overload of work- and family-related stress, and the neighbors called in a noise complaint, twice, over the sound of my screaming and bawling. The cops came to my door, and just wanted to make sure I was OK, and said that they were happy to have gotten to meet "one of the good citizens", me, instead of the "kind of people [they] usually have to deal with". I was shocked, absolutely shocked at how unbelievably nice and police they were, when I expected "cops are here, that means I'm in trouble".

I just don't know what to think about police anymore.

Missing any details?

[Anonymous Coward]

Like that her supporters on Facebook were egging her on?

That she was pulled over for having a cardboard license plate.
That she was one of those "free range Americas" that have opted out of the government and believe its law does not apply to them.
She refused to go to court because she did not recognize its power over her.

There is only so much a Police Officer can do.

Re: Missing any details?

[easyTree]

And why not?
Clearly 'might is right' is ironic - what other authority does one group have to dictate rules of conduct? Particularly when they are unwilling to abide by those rules themselves and are in control an army of murderous sociopaths with badges and guns?

Well that was fast

[rsilvergun]

I'm impressed how quickly the powers that be got the whole "live streaming" thing under control. As for the whole black lives matter aspect that part makes me nervous. I'm not really worried about overt racism so much any more as the casual kind. Were they more likely to use force or just plain more aggressive because they were dealing with a black perp. That's what makes the issue so hard, and that's what folks mean by "Institutional" racism.

Re: Wait for it...

[AK Marc]

Because she had mental issues? Because she thought that if they served a warrant against her, she'd lose her children. I don't know, and it doesn't matter. Nobody was in danger until the police came. The police killed someone, rather than backing off. The "crime" was a traffic stop. No spin. Yet no reason for the cops to rush in. White people get hours, and teargas. Black people get bullets.

Re:No video, no evidence.

[AK Marc]

Obviously the police killed her AFTER SHE SHOT AT THEM WITH A 12 GAUGE.

She shot at the police after the police stormed her home. Yes it's unwise to fight the police, but there was no reason to storm in. She was a danger to nobody, until the cops came. She would have been a danger to nobody after the cops left. Executing her for a traffic stop doesn't seem a reasonable outcome. But fighting was the only option she saw when they broke in and charged her with guns up, threatening her and her child.