A prosecutor declined to file charges against a Missouri police officer who shot and killed a woman and her infant child last year. Independence, Mo., officers responded to a reported assault in November at an apartment building. They were determining how to arrest the woman, who was nonverbal and communicating with nods and gestures, when she abruptly grabbed a butcher knife from a bedside table and moved toward the officers while holding the child, said Jackson County Prosecutor Melesa Johnson’s office.
One officer backed away, but the other was against a closet and couldn’t escape, Johnson’s. He fired four shots as the woman moved toward him with the knife. The shots killed the woman and her child, 34-year-old Maria Pike and her 3-month-old daughter, Destinii, reports the Associated Press.
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Johnson’s office said the officer’s use of deadly force “falls within the protection of the law.” The office said there wasn’t enough evidence to prove the officer intentionally shot the infant. “We did not arrive at this decision lightly. The loss of a young mother and her infant are devastating and tragic,” Johnson said. “However, as prosecutors, we are bound by an oath to apply the law and analyze facts without being guided by the sympathy we feel for all those impacted. Our purpose is to determine if what was done was reasonable, defined by Missouri law, and not whether it was the best course of action.”