The Columbine shootings and the 9/11 terrorist attacks led to changes in police shoot-to-kill policies. The family of Miriam Carey, shot and killed following a car chase, say police over-reacted.
By Patrik Jonsson, Staff Writer / October 5, 2013
The family of Miriam Carey, who led police on a rampaging car chase from the White House to the Capitol before being shot dead by police on Thursday, says the 34-year-old dental assistant had problems, but posed no real threat to anybody.
The deadly shot came after Ms. Carey, with her one-year-old daughter in the back of her black Infinity coupe, crashed into White House barricades, sideswiped at least two police cars, crashed into gates at the Capitol, and then stepped out of her car.
Diagnosed with mental health issues, Carey had told friends she believed President Obama was stalking her. She was supposed to have been in Brooklyn on the day she rammed the White House gate.
The tragic shooting, which came during a particularly tense week in a capitol recovering from the Navy Yard mass shooting and as leaders argued about how to end a partial government shutdown, has shined a light on what some say is a troubling progression in “shoot-to-kill” police protocol.