Another “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” Hoax Busted: Kansas City Woman Was Pointing Gun At Police When Shot
The alleged “victim” has been charged with unlawful possession of a firearm and unlawful use of a weapon.
It’s hard to believe that the radical left is trying to revive the “hands up, don’t shoot” lie from the Michael Brown case that catapulted the Black Lives Matter Movement, but here we are. Again:
A witness said a woman had her hands up moments before she was shot multiple times by Kansas City police officers Friday night in a store parking lot. Shédanja, who declined to provide her last name, said the woman was trying to run from officers when they fired at her.
But not so fast. KMBC reports:
A 26-year-old Kansas City, Kansas, woman who was shot by Kansas City, Missouri, police officers Friday night has been charged in the case.
Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said Leonna M. Hale was charged with unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful use of a weapon and a misdemeanor of resisting a lawful detention.
Hale was shot by Kansas City police officers outside a Family Dollar store near Sixth Street and Prospect Avenue. Authorities said the car she was in matched a description of one involved in an armed carjacking in Kansas City, Kansas.
When officers conducted a car check, the man driving the car jumped out and ran.
Court documents said Hale got out of the passenger side of the car and went to the rear of the vehicle.
Video surveillance from body cameras showed Hale being told to drop the firearm and pointing it at the officers before the officers fired three shots, according to court records.
Hale was taken to a hospital, where she was last listed in stable condition.
The quickest way for anyone of any race to get shot by police is to draw and point a gun at them. The second quickest way is to lunge, as Michael Brown did, for an officer’s pistol. It’s really not rocket science, but for some reason, too many people have forgotten–or were never taught–one of the key rules in a civil society: follow the lawful orders of law enforcement. Don’t run. And for goodness’ sake, don’t draw on them. Hale is lucky to be alive.
So this police interaction that should have been quick and easy (they were either involved in the armed car-jacking or they weren’t; they’d be arrested and taken to jail or not), turned into a national disgrace . . . for the left.
As they tried and tried to gin up another “hands up don’t shoot” lie, a video of the encounter was released by the Jackson County prosecutor’s office that clearly shows Hale not just holding a gun, but pointing it at the police who were behind her.
.@ryanshead spread the hoax to thousands of people on Twitter: https://t.co/0wtMv2a0bL pic.twitter.com/uxaYQm2tbe
— Andy Ngô 🏳️🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) June 2, 2022
And Ryan Shead, a Democrat running for the state house in Arizona, didn’t just tweet about this story once. He went on and on about it. Apparently, he believes that leaping to conclusions, making wild accusations without evidence, reading and citing as a “source” something called “Hollywood Unlocked,” and condemning police are the ticket to political stardom in the Democrat party. He may not be wrong.
Two Kansas City police officers shot an unarmed 26-year-old pregnant Black woman Friday night.
She exited a vehicle with her hands in the air and they shot her 5 times.
But they can’t run into a school where kids are being massacred? 🤔#LeonnaHale
— Ryan Shead (@RyanShead) May 30, 2022
Source article: https://t.co/BCVulXjYEd
— Ryan Shead (@RyanShead) May 30, 2022
🛑GRAPHIC TRIGGER WARNING🛑
The cops handcuffed her and left her laying there to bleed with no sense of urgency to render aid.
Count how many cops you see! pic.twitter.com/BQyMOpZUdc
— Ryan Shead (@RyanShead) May 30, 2022
Only when the actual facts were reported by actual news services did Shead provide an “update.” No apology, no oops, no what the heck am I thinking getting (and publicly admitting to getting) my news from some site called “Hollywood Unlocked”?
🚨UPDATE🚨
Released body cam footage shows Leonna Hale did in fact have a weapon at the time she was shot by police. https://t.co/gHI1iqhE4k
— Ryan Shead (@RyanShead) June 1, 2022
Quite an update. Almost like waiting for more info would’ve been prudent.
— J-Rod (@DahntaysDawg) June 2, 2022
To be fair to Shead, it’s become really hard to tell what is actual news and what is infotainment, propaganda, or outright lies. For example, even a supposed straight news outlet apparently tried to stoke civil unrest with a gossipy and rumor-laden “report” on the incident.
The Kansas City Star “reported” (archive link):
A witness said a woman had her hands up moments before she was shot multiple times by Kansas City police officers Friday night in a store parking lot. Shédanja, who declined to provide her last name, said the woman was trying to run from officers when they fired at her.
. . . . Shédanja, 29, said she went to the store with her three children to get gasoline and ice cream. She heard officers start yelling, “Get out the car,” to two people who were in the vehicle next to hers. A man exited, jumped a fence and ran. Three officers chased after him, she said. The woman exited the car with her hands up, Shédanja said. Officers told the woman to get on the ground, but the woman told them she was pregnant, Shédanja said, and couldn’t get down on the ground. Police asked her to get down multiple times. The woman then told police there was a gun in the vehicle. The woman started backing toward a fence in the parking lot. Several officers approached her and had their weapons drawn, Shédanja said. “She did not pull out a weapon on them,” she said. “She did not even have a stick in her hand.”
The woman ran three steps away from officers, Shédanja said, and police shot five times. “One, two, three, four, five. I remember it because it didn’t stop. They shot five times,” Shédanja said during a phone interview Saturday with The Star. “I remember seeing her hit the ground and I froze.” Shédanja asked police several times why they shot the woman, but officers did not answer. She started recording the scene. In the video she shared with The Star, the woman is seen lying on the ground with blood on her shirt. An officer appears to put her in handcuffs. Several more officers arrive.
This is not journalism. Journalism is getting the facts from, oh, I don’t know the police? The elected officials in that city, county, or state? Witnesses should be interviewed by law enforcement, the DA, their own attorney, and pretty much anyone but a grasping journalist whose only point appears to be to stoke anti-police sentiment based on the observations of some random Family Dollar shopper.
I can see including witness quotes in an actual report on the incident that includes the official accounts from police, city officials, the police report, etc., but the bulk of an entire story being what a witness claims is printing gossip and rumor as fact, giving it extra weight because it comes from a supposedly legitimate source.
The Kansas City Star did note, all the way at the bottom of the original article, that “a handgun was found near the area where the woman was shot.” This single sentence should have killed the story right then and there. That it did not is appalling. The Star did print an “update” stating the Hale did have a gun . . . which they already knew when they published the piece in the first place. Shoddy.
So invested in trying to instigate civil disorder, the radical left even began claiming that the image was photoshopped to add a gun (and something about ankles, very odd turn).
If you're going to photoshop something, make sure to fill in both ankles 😉 https://t.co/YS2QLAf15o pic.twitter.com/SqILuOUdbX
— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) June 2, 2022
Genius thinks video compression & motion artifacts are evidence of a conspiracy of photoshopping a gun into the woman’s hand. He even discusses how I’m liable for defamation because he thought the image came from me. The Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office released it. https://t.co/aFAXNbePPu
— Andy Ngô 🏳️🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) June 2, 2022
What’s amazing here is that if it really was photoshopped, that means the Dem lady DA did it and none of them give a s*it once that’s pointed out.
— Greg Pollowitz (@GPollowitz) June 2, 2022
The Jackson County prosecutor’s office responded to the leftists’ desperate attempts to generate outrage based on lies.
Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker issued the following statement:
“Some false narratives about what happened last Friday night at 6th and Prospect Avenue, unfortunately, were relied upon by some media and other sources. Our job, as prosecutors, is to remain neutral and review all evidence. Our review of body cam videos provided the actual accounting of events that night.
“Our review of the investigation revealed the defendant, although she denied having a weapon at the time of the encounter with law enforcement officers, continually displayed a weapon during her encounter with police officers and also appeared to be attempting to flee. The two officers stated that she was armed with what they believed to be a handgun. Body camera footage confirms the officers’ statements that Hale was holding a handgun. Still photos, taken from body cam footage, of this encounter also demonstrate a weapon was present and in the hands of the defendant.”
That this latest attempt to reinvigorate nationwide rioting, burning, looting, and murder has (thus far) failed is small mercy because we know that they are all eager to get that party started, and if it has to be built on a retread of the original “hands up don’t shoot” lie, so be it.
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Comments
There are a great number of people who refuse to accept anything that doesn’t advance or support their own biased viewpoint. They would rather remain isolated in the safety of their orthodox cocoon than willingly examine any idea which might undermine their emotional security blanket.
Don’t run.
You’ll only die tired.
pointing it at the officers
For certain values of “pointed”. From the point of view of the person trying to arrest her, it was most certainly “pointed”. From the POV of a citizen trained to shoot, she ain’t pointin’ nuthin’! She might be hoping for a ricochet off the parking lot. IOW, she appears to be an idiot.
A witness said
In modern journalism, this means “Someone said something incendiary! So I’m going to print it and we’ll get outrage clicks!”
I remember it because it didn’t stop. They shot five times
Oh yeah, credible witness there. “It didn’t stop. But it stopped.” Oy vey.
She started recording the scene,
‘Cause it’s all about those clicks! Gotta go viral! No matter the truth.
Journalism is getting the facts from, oh, I don’t know the police?Journalism is getting the facts from, oh, I don’t know the police?
Sorry, Fuzzy, but you’re wrong on this one. Plenty of times (like Uvalde!) where getting the ‘facts’ from the police and leaving it there would have been journalistic malpractice. You get facts from wherever you can get them. But in order to make sure they’re actually facts by checking them before running with them. What mattered in this case is that the paper should have gotten counter-evidence and then sorted them out.
BTW, the first significant bit of doubt came into my mind when I heard the woman on the video. “Oh yeah, she wouldn’t hold up in a court of law.” The only thing missing was the declaration, “She didn do nuffin.”
Heh, I didn’t say anything about leaving it at getting facts from police. I included a range of others who might be more credible than a rando at the dollar store.
My point is simple: A story about a police shooting that doesn’t involve more in-depth journalistic investigation, including talking to the police among others, than questioning some lady off the street is not journalism.
It was a breaking story, the community wanted to know what was going on, they needed to put something up on their website. I don’t blame them for publishing what a witness to the event said she saw.
I blame them, since you can be almost certain that it is not an accurate representation of the event.
I suppose there is a situation that could exist where multiple police officers in 2022 Kansas City when confronted by an unarmed pregnant black woman with her hands up would shoot her multiple times.
But in reality I would be very suspicious of the witness. Only if you have been fed a long list of lies for years would you think that story is likely to be true. Or you could print it because are one of the originators of the long list of lies and have taking a chance to add a new one.
The way the cops behaved in the George Floyd situation is pretty unbelievable, but it happened. Police responding to a reported carjacking easily could have shot an unarmed pregnant women who like reached for her id instead of putting her hands up or whatever.
Idiot conjecture award of the day goes to Dennis
The cops didn’t do anything wrong in the George Floyd case. George overdosed and died before the paramedics arrived. People who resist arrest should expect to die.
I find it amazing that people can get as ignorant as you in one lifetime. You don’t blame them for publishing what a witness said she saw? So maybe it slipped that small mind of yours what happened in Ferguson Missouri, when the leftist media happily published what a ‘witness to the event said’. So suddenly Mike Brown was shot and killed while surrendering with his hands up, when in fact he was trying to kill officer Wilson. Morons such as yourself refuse to accept the reality that the media loves to publish any story which will cause civil unrest, riots, etc. Even if they have to make them up. What are you…..about 14 years old?
I think the cops dropped the ball w/ the Michael Brown thing by not telling the public anything for several weeks. It made it look like they were hiding something.
Are you saying the media shouldn’t have reported what Dorian Johnson was saying about what happened?
There’s a huge difference between including witness statements/observations in an in-depth report on any incident and the witness statement/observations being the entire “report.” Or do you think that everything every random citizen says is “newsworthy” when not backed up or substantiated in any way, shape, or form? Journalism should not be based on gossip and that’s all that Star report was; in fact, the little actual reporting they did refuted everything the witness stated, so they KNEW they were reporting a false witness account and published it anyway. Shoddy journalism by anyone’s standards. Well, almost anyone, apparently you think what some shopper says is newsworthy . . . even if it’s a total fabrication.
As far as I can see, in every single one of the “white cop/black perp” altercations, the black perp was either fighting with the cops or resisting arrest, including high speed chases.
Maybe there is a lesson here for blacks. I would first have them review Chris Rock”s “how not to get your a– kicked by the police” video, which can be found all over the net.
The falling star. The red star. That’s how our local leftist tabloid is referred by most around these parts. Despite ample evidence this woman was begging for S.B.C. (suicide by cop), the red star determined to stir up racial strife with a hit piece featuring ‘urban activists’: ‘We still do not believe KCPD’: Activists rally for woman shot by Kansas City police
This is yet another example of the ‘Zeroeth Amendment’ to the US Constitution writ large: “NO black person need submit to law enforcement, if they don’t feel like it. Or else.” It also explains why many black neighborhoods are 3rd world toilets with skyhigh black-on-black murder.
https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article262037702.html
I’ve long had a soft spot for the Kansas City Star, having been something of a Hemingway buff back in my days in academia. But yeah, this was really shoddy stuff. Shocking, really, since they included in the story (at the end) the fact that a gun “was found” near Hale, thus undermining and calling into question everything that preceded that sentence. /smh
Since there is no mention of the condition of the baby after being shot 5 times, I’m guessing she wasn’t pregnant either.
Maybe it is a new trend, “abortion by cop.”
The KC Star was my long go former employer for 9 years, but that was back in the Art Brisbane days when, as a broad sheet, was admittedly left of center, but at least feigned being a legitimate newspaper of record. There was homage paid to ‘Pappa’ on the walls inside founding publisher William R. Nelson’s beautiful brick edifice at 18th & Grand to let the world know ‘cowtown KCMO’ had some claim to international fame, however small.
And Washington Cemetery, off Truman Road (yes, that Truman), has a collection of majestic headstones arranged in proximity, and in the polished granites are inscribed ‘HEMMINGWAY.’ I’m not certain if it’s ‘that’ Hemmingway, but interesting none the less.
By the time I worked at 18th & Grand (and had lunch at Bryant’s about six blocks away), the place was a filthy, unmaintained pit. It was obvious to me that the newspaper business was on the downhill slide, just to look around. I would sometimes wish that I had been born 30 years earlier, just to have worked at the Star during its glory days of the 1950s. I caught it on the downhill slide.
Must have been one hell of a place back in the day. I would go read the back issues just for how those stories were edited. I can’t put it into words right now, but there was a time when the Kansas City Star was far and away the best-written newspaper in America. Oh, to have been there then.
p.s.: By the time Brisbane was promoted, the Star was dying.
Well, Hemingway (one “m”) is not buried in or near Kansas City, nor did he have much to do with it after his very early years as a (mostly foreign) correspondent. I also doubt any mention of a “Pappa” has anything to do with Hemingway, given that the usage associated with him is “Papa”. Then again, maybe the paper has a long and illustrious career of being bad at journalism beginning with its founder? Things that make you go “hmmm.”
The Star was a great newspaper. Was.
Things that make you go “hmmm.”
Let me get this straight about the left’s way of thinking. If a white person kills school children with a gun it is evil, but when an unarmed black person with a gun is killed by cops, the cops are evil?
Naw. it’s just their cheapshit way of implying that one of the cops dumped a throwdown piece next to her.
Leftists don’t think, they react. It is very reptilian, requiring no action on the part of the higher brain. All seems to be accomplished at subcortical levels.
Brainstem only. Pure primitive reflex, requiring no neocortex.
Yes. Nailed it
So, Shayladayashamalambadingdong starts filming after everything has happened and Ma Barker is on the ground then spins a wild story that gets printed? Has no-one learned anything?
It’s what they want to happen
Burn baby burn
Kill whitey.
Eyewitness accounts of like gun fights and stuff are famously unreliable. Things happen very quickly, people don’t really know what happened, the imagination fills in the details.
“Eyewitness accounts of like gun fights and stuff are famously unreliable.”
except when eyewitnesses are deliberately lying and are exposed as such by the bodycam/video evidence
Oh they’ve learned something alright. They’ve learned that they can fan the flames of racial hatred easily and repeatedly, and that doing so helps them maintain their grip on power. Oh yeah, and damn the consequences to society.
I’m holding my hands up now in solidarity with… never mind she had a gun.
If your black you can do no wrong
Just amazing
Eventually, and sooner than I want to believe, race wars are going to
Come in mass
It’s going to be so freaking
Ugly and bloody
All black people should travel by themselves. It is when they are accompanied by another black person with a cell phone that bad things happen. I can’t wait to see what Donut Operator does with this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EeQ1uqKR10&list=PLK9ZPdR22-OHlVTXVkOMFaRvYi8h_sygZ&index=1
I’m going to semi-“out” myself to a degree that I rarely do online. First off, I was blocked by Raw Story for heterodox views about this. All I knew at the time was that it was a carjacking. For saying so, and logically following through, the antifa pukes who run that joint excommunicated me.
Secondly, a long time ago (40 years) I was a reporter for the Kansas City Star before it became “woke.” Old school journalism. Raw Story placed this in Kansas, but anyone who’s ever been there knows the difference between KCMO and KCK. An aside: My Dan Wesson 715 full-framed revolver, chambered in .357 magnum, was manufactured in KCK.
People make mistakes. It’s part of the human condition. But here’s the thing: It’s usually not about the mistake, but about what happens next. My favorite correction — entirely self-initiated, easily covered up if I were that kind — happened in KCMO, at the Kansas City Star.
Sorry for the yammering, but there’s an underlying deal with me on this. Woe betide they who make shit up. I’ve gone after the wingers here who made shit up a little while ago. I go after the “progressives” who make shit up. It’s not political, believe it or not: “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” Applies across the board, always, no matter who the hell you are.
Yeah, cops screwing up and then lying to hide their mistakes is certainly a thing. Doesn’t seem like that’s what happened in this case.
Lying is always a story. It’s always the same story, no matter what. There are times when you have to lie, i.e. a “white lie,” but even those are lies and have to somehow be seen by someone (at the very least, the teller) for what they are. As a reporter, nothing made me angrier than being lied to. Made my blood run cold, and still does.
To be fair, if I am only carrying one gun, I do sort of feel that I am unarmed.
With a first name like Shedanja who needs a last name?
As soon as I saw the name, I knew she was lying.
“With a first name like Shedanja who needs a last name?”
maybe it’s her professional name
Professional name. Which profession? LOL
Ah, the rabble-rousers. Always looking to stir up violence and civil unrest. Don’t blame the low-IQ folks that mouth off about these things at the scene. They have no duty to watch what they say anyways. The rabble-rousing race-baiting malicious bastards that take these incidents and do their best to turn it into a violent riot are the real problem here.
low IQ, low impulse control, high aggression, high time preference. this is why this kind of encounter will never end.
Plus being stoked with entitlement and riled up with racist propaganda like these serial episodes of high profile frauds. Recipe for trouble.
Time to ban those racist body cams again!
Bodycams are great for 2 reasons. 1) they pretty much brought an end to 95% of the accusations which would hold some traction without evidence to the contrary. 2) They provide me with endless hours of entertainment in my retirement. It is like being able to enjoy a bar fight without the disgusting smell of the bar, or even having to leave the lay-Z-boy. This story is amatuer hour to that one recently in La Crosse where the “friend” with the camera kept offering commentary that was different than the officers orders despite the fact that he was himslef filming his lies. Perp is holding officers taser. Cop “let go of the taser!” Firend with cell phone “he ain’t got no taser.” I am starting to wonder if maybe the friend called 911 so he could film the arrest and hopefully get a big payout from some TV station or wrongful death lawyer. Good thing I’m not a cynical person.