Prosecutors refuse to press the charges against the Missouri police officer who shot and killed a mother and her son.

Destinii Hope, 2 months, was shot dead by the police on Thursday, November 7 in Independence, Missouri. (Photo: Talisa Brian Coombs)

Jackson County prosecutors, Missouri, announced on Friday night that they will not press criminal charges against the police officer of the city of Independence, who fatally shot Maria Pike and her two -month -old baby, Destinii Hope. Pike and his daughter were killed by the officer still without a name on November 7, 2024, after the police responded to a call of domestic violence.

According to the details published by the authorities and partial images of the body of the body, the officers responded to a call of domestic violence in an apartment complex. The grandmother of Destinii, Talisa Coombs, had called the police, claiming that Pike had assaulted her during a visit to verify if she was complying with a security plan of the children’s division.

The police were informed that a child was in the apartment, but according to the reports they entered the wrong unit in the complex and kept Bug Arnold at gunpoint before continuing with the right one. Destinii’s father, Mitchell Holder, told the Kansas City defender He asked if they could speak through the apartment door, saying that he did not want his daughter to be near armed officers, but they came up anyway.

According to reports, both Holder and Pike fought with mental health problems, with Pike suffering postpartum depression.

After entering the apartment, the two officers met Pike in a “nursery area” in a dressing room, where he was not verbal with the officers. According to the reports, the officers requested a backup copy of an officer of the crisis intervention team. According to prosecutors, the two officers spent 11 minutes trying to talk to Pike.

Pike then left the nursery area, passing to the officers to sit on the bed. Despite having asked for assistance and Pike does not represent any threat, the officers communicated with each other, indicating preparations to make an arrest, which would have required to take destiny of their mother.

According to the reports, Pike stirred his finger “to communicate” no “or a negative response to this communication between the officers.” Shortly after, he grabbed a large kitchen knife from a bedside table next to the bed and held it on his head. An officer ran towards the door, while the other immediately took his gun and shot Maria and Destinii.

This information was presented in a letter of sixteen pages that explain the decision, signed by prosecutor Melesa Johnson. The document concludes: “After an exhaustive and independent review of the available evidence and the applicable legal standards, this office has determined that we will not present criminal charges against the shooting officer.”

This decision was justified with the argument that the officer acted “reasonably” to defend Maria Pike, and that the murder of Destinii could only be considered in the context of whether the officer shot him intentionally. Prosecutors argued that shooting a woman who held a baby was not an “unjustifiable risk” because the officer believed that his life was in danger.

Such legal reasoning, and the entire framework of the prosecutor’s decision is an example of the textbook of the role of the police as executors of the class rule instead of public security defenders. The decision not to prosecute, which means that it will not even present the case before a large jury to determine whether to proceed to the Court, it is based completely on the right of the officer to act without taking into account public safety.

The document repeatedly establishes that the officer is not legally obliged to “withdraw or give up”, which means that the officer did not have the legal obligation to avoid killing a woman and her baby. He trusts that the trained instinct of an officer to kill is legally justified as a “reasonable response.” It also focuses on the authority of the officers to arrest Maria Pike, establishing that they were legally authorized to take all “reasonable” actions to carry out the arrest, including the use of force, and repeatedly quotes the prevention of escape as justification to use force.

Despite having asked for a crisis intervention team and Pike not to represent a threat, the officers decided to arrest her in a situation in which a mentally distressed mother would have to be separated by the force of her baby. Regardless of how the law is written, no matter how Draconian, it is evident due to the available evidence that the officers created a confrontation situation in which Pike’s security and his baby was secondary to the authority of the officers to use force in their terms.

In addition, Dispatch had informed the officers that Pike could be armed with a knife before meeting her. The document establishes that the “objectives of the officers when entering the apartment were to carry out a protective sweep, a check or search for unit by weapons or other people) and locate the civilian.” However, the document does not refer to any attempts at the officers of looking for weapons, or such an evident attempt in the partially released body chamber images, although they are in the room with Pike for more than ten minutes.

In response to the decision, the draft responsibility for the application of Kansas City’s Law issued a statement that says: “This result is not just a deep failure of our justice system, it is a failure of our collective responsibility to protect and honor all members of our community, including those with mental health problems and disabilities.”

The statement also raised questions that remain unanswered by the authorities, including if Pike still had the knife in his hand when he was shot, the presence of an inexplicable bullet entry on the back and the decision of the officers not to wait for the crisis intervention team.

These and other questions throw serious doubts about the prosecutor’s decision and raise concerns about what information is being held from the public, specifically, why the images of the full -body chamber have not yet been published months after the shooting.

It is clear that not all facts are being revealed and that the authorities are holding information to protect the shooting officer. If the officer’s actions were really justified, the images of the full body chamber would have launched to support that statement.

This tragic murder of an anguished mother and her two -month -old baby is very common. Every year, the police kill more than 1,000 people. In 2024, the police killed 1,365 people, the highest number ever registered. So far this year, the police have killed 222 people, and 2025 is on the way to being another record year.

Since George Floyd’s murder in 2020 caused mass protests that requested the definte of the police departments and the promises of democratic politicians to invest in a better training and responsibility, the number of murders has not decreased; In fact, it has increased significantly. In comparison, 1,159 people were killed in 2020, which at that time was a record.