The standoff began Monday morning after the Baltimore County Police Department went to an apartment in Randallstown, an unincorporated community near Baltimore, to serve an arrest warrant for Kareem Courtney and Gaines. The Facebook account was deactivated during the standoff. Her five-year-old son was with her throughout the negotiations, and the boy was wounded in the arm during an exchange of gunfire between police and Gaines, authorities said.
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In the other video, Gaines talks to the boy, who gives halting answers, which raises the possibility the boy might have been coached. Gaines returned fire, according to police. Baltimore County police say officers have shot and killed a woman who barricaded herself and a child inside a suburban Baltimore apartment and pointed a gun at them.
Facebook has a portal for law enforcement requests, though, and police did ask the social media giant to deactivate her account “to preserve the integrity of the negotiations”. Facebook complied, he said. Gaines, however, remained inside her home with five-year-old Kody and her gun.
The incident happened at around 9:20 a.m. on Monday. Officers heard male, female and children’s voices inside the apartment.
They waited outside the door for about 10 minutes, Johnson said during a Monday press conference.
According to Johnson, officers knocked on the apartment door and identified themselves as police. The officer saw Gaines sitting on the floor and pointing a Mossberg 12-gauge pistol grip shotgun at him, according to Baltimore County Police. The caption read, among other things, “They threw me a charge too late, got my “Big Girl” September of previous year”. Police retreated to the hallway and called for tactical personnel. “We know the child, as a 5-year-old would, was moving about”, Johnson said.
So authorities successfully petitioned Facebook to disable the 23-year-old’s accounts, which took about an hour.
“Gaines was posting video of the operation as it unfolded”, Johnson said.
A Baltimore woman is dead, and a boy is injured following a standoff with police.
Finally, she said, “If you don’t leave, I’m going to kill you”. “I’m going to kill you”, Johnson quoted Gaines as saying. Gaines then fired two shots at police but also missed. Officers responded with three shots and the woman was struck. Her son was hit by shrapnel from a bullet in the crossfire and suffered injuries that are not life-threatening. The boy’s exact location during the gunfire is also unclear, he said. Asked later if police contemplated bringing body cameras to the scene during the hours-long standoff, Armacost said she would have to check and get back to reporters.
The videos are not publicly visible on her Facebook page, but have been shared widely by users on other social networks like Twitter.
Police negotiators spoke with Gaines during the barricade, encouraging her to “surrender peacefully”, the statement said.
The department did not release the names or races of the officers involved, who were placed on administrative leave. Their first initials and last names will be released 48 hours after the shooting, in accordance with the department’s contract with the Fraternal Order of Police.
Police arrived at Gaines’s home that morning to serve outstanding warrants for her stemming from another encounter she had filmed and publicized online: a March traffic stop that ended in charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. She said they “would have to “murder’ her” to get her out of her auto so it could be towed, the report said”.
She was originally pulled over for driving without a license plate. In place of a tag, she had a cardboard sign with a handwritten message warning government officials not to compromise her right to travel, he said.
Online court records say Gaines was black.
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Gaines’ boyfriend is charged with second-degree assault, which stems from a fight with Gaines, police said.
