Seattle woman killed by police while children were home after reporting theft

Seattle police shot and killed a mother of four inside her apartment in the presence of her young children after she called law enforcement to report a burglary.

The death of 30-year-old Charleena Lyles, who police say was carrying a knife, has sparked outrage across the country, with critics decrying the shooting as another example of US law enforcement using excessive force against black Americans.

Two officers fired at Lyles shortly after arriving to investigate a burglary on Sunday morning, and the mother was pronounced dead before she could be taken to a hospital, according to police. Law enforcement on Monday released a four-minute audio recording of the fatal encounter, which captures an officers saying, “We need help” and “Get back! Get back!” before they fired a stream of bullets.

The Seattle Times identified the woman killed as Lyles and said she was pregnant and that three children, ages one, four and 11, were at home during the shooting. Police said the youth were not injured, and that other family members are taking care of them. Police called Lyles a “suspect” in an initial statement, though the Times reported that Lyles was the one who had made the call to report a burglary.

“They didn’t only take one life – they took two lives,” Wanda Cockerhern, a cousin who helped raise Lyles, told the Guardian on Monday. “And they destroyed the four lives of her children.”

Cockerhern, 51, noted that Lyles’ four-year-old daughter has Down’s syndrome and was struggling to understand what had happened. She added: “Her 11-year-old son had to walk over his mother’s dead body … I want justice, and we want answers.”

Lyles’ relatives said she suffered from mental health challenges. The officers who fired at Lyles are now on paid administrative leave, which is standard protocol in a shooting.

It’s unclear how the burglary investigation escalated to a fatal shooting. Although the police department would typically only sendone officer to investigate a burglary, police said that two officers investigated in this case “due to information pertaining to this address that presented an increased risk to officers”.

In the police recording, which came from the officers’ dashcam…

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