Do we really need armed gunfighters to do welfare checks? What if we stopped funding these expensive cops so much and hired more social workers for these tasks?

Well, if the police say she pointed a gun, what reason could we ever have to doubt their account?

@1: Sure, considering the facts.

another suicide by cop. a gun in the home, etc.

@5: maybe the cops should have followed that protocol, and then negotiated. the kids were safe at that point.

Cop: Let's see, kids safe now and no one in eminent danger. House is not on fire. Person is quiet in her room, but possibly could be armed. Possibly could be armed alone?? GO IN AND SHOOT HER.
Simply DOING NOTHING after securing the children would have been the best possible outcome here. Why did they need to barge in pointing guns knowing the only outcome could be a gunfight? THERE IS NO SATISFACTORY ANSWER FOR THAT ACTION. Why not wait until subject contact is made? Holed up gunman could maybe use a trained negotiator, yes? Maybe an amped-up screaming cop pointing a gun isn't the best negotiator to send in. These cops were playing army. Sadly, the defense being offered is "they were trained to play army, but y'know, with real guns."

If we could just figure out the relative value of the life of a police officer versus that of non-police officers, we could sort this out.

As is, lets just assume that cops are super valuable, and people on welfare are worth much less and continue as we have been.

@8 The cops didn't know the condition of the woman, seeing as how the purpose of the call was to check on her it seems appropriate that they did.

Or lets say they did retreat and try to make contact, and the woman doesn't respond? Should the cops just leave (a mentally unstable woman with a gun) or sit outside waiting?

@4- You go to great lengths to justify shooting a depressed woman, but it is painfully obvious that there were a million ways this could have happened her death at the hands of public employees. Yes, I do think her dead by her own hand is a much better outcome than this. Yes, I do think the very moderate risk of an unarmed person performing the welfare check would have been preferable to this. Since the victim pointed an unloaded weapon at the cops (if we believe the cops' story, which I think we have every reason to doubt), she clearly didn't intend to harm anyone else.

If we refuse to learn from this situation (and all the others like it) we will just keep adding names to the list of people we paid the cops to kill not as a last resort but when there were plenty of better options.

@13 "...a million ways this could have happened WITHOUT her death..."

@4:

Of course we're skeptical of the "cops version of events", precisely because we have all seen and heard far too many instances where, when presented with objective evidence not within their control, it is clear their version of events is a flat-out prevarication. And in this sad example the only other person who could possibly have contradicted their version is conveniently dead. Maybe she had an unloaded gun in her hands and did point it at the officers; maybe it was sitting on the bed or on the dresser out of her reach when they burst in; maybe it was planted by the cops after they shot her - all of these are plausible scenarios and each has been known to occur with enough frequency that it can't be summarily ruled out simply on the cop's say-so. But, as you say, because there are no other witnesses and no objective verification, such as body-cam footage, we have only their "word" as to how events transpired. As for what needs to be seen - well, the Late Ms. Davis' children have already seen their mother gunned down before their eyes, so I guess it's too late to ask whether they truly needed to see THAT.

Also, perhaps if LEA's would stop spending gazillions of dollars on military-grade ordinance, armored vehicles, etc., etc., I'll bet they could come up with the comparative pittance needed to fully commit to crisis intervention and other similar forms of training.

@4

If she was going to shoot the first unarmed person she found, why didn't she step out her front door and shoot the first unarmed person she found? Or her kids? Or herself? Why didn't she shoot the mail man? Why didn't she shoot the gas meter reader?

She had that gun for days, weeks, maybe years, before the cops showed up. And only then, only when two armed cops are in her house, only then does her gun come out. What does that tell you?

And unarmed social workers, or other trained professionals appropriate to the situation, contact people in crisis every day, and nothing happens. They visit their homes, and nothing happens. The idea that you can't go to somebody's house and see how things are going unless you're armed is absurd. One of the reasons social workers can handle these situations is that they are unarmed: as soon as things start too look confrontational, they stop and rethink it. They de-escalate. They make whatever effort it takes to understand the person and figure out how to help them. Because that's that's the only tool they have. And it's what they're good at.

Cops don't bother. They aren't trained to figure people out, and they don't have the time or the inclination. As soon as a subject starts to show hostility, their hand moves to their gun holster and they get ready to shoot. They bark some orders to see if they'll submit, and if that doesn't work, they shoot. Cops are trained to demand total submission from everybody; anything less is an excuse to kill them.

AND it's fucking expensive. Cops are expensive to train, expensive to equip, expensive to pay. They need expensive cars and expensive police stations. And then when they go and shoot somebody, then we have to foot the bill for the wrongful death settlement. If the cops get PTSD from all the people they kill, we pay for that too. If they throw out their back during their (useless) commando training, we pay for that. We lose going in and we lose going out and what have we got to show for it? Nothing but people shot at random.

@10) Yes, sit outside waiting, if they don't have any better instructions. They had already removed the children. The worst outcome of waiting after that (according to the info at hand) is that she possibly commits suicide at some later time, if she were indeed armed as reported. Best outcome: situation calms, nobody dies, kids still have mommy.

The best, worst, and only outcome of barging with pointed guns is that police lives are also potentially in danger, she is shot dead (murdered), and the kids have no mommy.

So, they don't charge in and probably everyone is still alive. Cooler heads prevail.

But they do barge in and now the police are in danger and the subject is in danger (and hence dead) and no mommy this or next Christmas. HOW IS THAT THE BEST CHOICE OF OUTCOMES HERE? CARE TO JUSTIFY THAT???

Im wondering if it wasnt her pointing the gun but handing the gun over, showing it, unfortunately, nozzle first. I bet too, they handcuffed her after the shooting, letting her bleed out.
They are piping up about "crisis intervention" for the cop, but what about those kids?
And the boyfriend...did they fight and he was leaving her, pregnant, alone, and her despair overwhelmed her to be dramatic, hoping he would come back?
Another thing, foster children go through abandonment situations , different numerous homes, foster parents, schools, caseworkers, friends, separated from siblings but for an hour visit once a month, their world in a garbage bag through each transfer. Why are they not given intensive counseling, ageing out with no support from the very State that took them?

@20

Yeah, so instead send a cop in to bang on the door and yell at them for five minutes, then come in shoot when they get impatient. Fuck you.

You think mental health treatment causes suicide? Do you get the fact that people who seek or are put into treatment are at higher risk of suicide in the first place than the general population? It's like saying people treated by oncologists die of cancer more often than the general population. Oncologists don't cause cancer, bud.

You suck at this. I can see why you're no longer doing community mental health. You were fired, weren't you? Tell the truth. Fired for general incompetence. I don't even believe that. You're an internet troll who makes shit up and thinks you can fool people.

@21: Instead of reacting with hostility to those providing interesting commentary and experiences on a multi-faceted event, why don't you just be appreciative of different points of view? After all, that's why you read the comments in the first place.

Or, you can just call me a concern troll. That would answer my question as well.

What happens when someone bleeds out from a wound or dies of an overdose when the police arrive and the person needs assistance?

Would you be willing to accept preventable death where the police could have helped to avoid these type of situations?

Also, the way to do this correctly is to pay for mental health/medical professionals to respond with the police to these wellness checks. But that costs money.

@23

How many people did she raise the gun at before these cops? Zero? Coincidence? No.

Maybe she would have pulled a gun on anybody, but she didn't, did she? This is not an isolated case. The pattern we see in almost all these shootings is somebody who is somehow getting through every day without guns coming out. That changes when the cops show up. Why? The common denominator is cops.

@26- Why do you believe the cops? Somebody died and they have every reason to lie about how it happened.

@23- "So if a mentally ill person really wants to die, by their own hand, or by forcing LE's hand, their is no way to stop them."

You're right, except for that "forcing law enforcement to do it part." Because it's not the mentally ill person who ends their life in that case and law enforcement officers have free will and the ability to avoid forcing situations themselves. Like in this case, where if the officers had simply left their guns in the car nobody would have died.

And today there is a report in Seattle of a couple who ambushed and robbed others at gunpoint in Victory Park, and holed up in an apartment with their weapon(s) while police waited outside for 5 hours. Yet somehow the police did not need to barge in and shoot everyone!??! There was a peaceful resolution with suspects in custody - because police did not storm in with guns pointed, even though suspects had already threatened their robbery victims at gunpoint.

Obviously pregnant women with small children are far more dangerous and need shooting more than common criminals. Clearly, as the astute comments in this thread point out, there was simply zero other outcome possible but a shot dead pregnant woman.

@27 lets hear a reason why the cops would want to kill a pregnant native chick and maybe I wont believe their story. Do they get some kind of bonus for shooting women? What would be their motive? There are 2 options I see in this thread a) Cops break into single mothers house, murder her and plant gun or b) Cops check on armed mentally unstable person, crazy person does something crazy and cop shoots her. Unless she was a drug dealer and the cops stole a pile of cash from her or have some other motive I'm leaning toward b.