Police officers in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania were responding to a call about a domestic disturbance involving a man allegedly threatening his mother with a knife.
Upon arrival at the home of Earl “Shaleek” Pinckney and his mother Kim Thomas, police reports allege that Pinckney was holding a knife to his mother’s throat and refused to comply with their orders to drop it. His mother says she was getting things under control when the police suddenly entered the home.
“I was in the room with him. His sisters and my niece…they were arguing,” she said. “That was fine. They got a little rustling and everything, I stopped it. I told everybody to get out the house, I held my son, I was talking to my son. I know how to control my son. He was calming down. Everything was getting fine.”
Police maintain that an officer fired a single shot after Pinckney refused to drop the knife, but Thomas claims that her son did not have a knife at the time he was shot by police.
Pinckney was the father of a 2-week-old baby girl and reportedly suffered from bipolar disorder, according to his mother.
Dauphin County District Attorney Edward Marsico says investigators plan to thoroughly review the policy regarding the use of deadly force and determine the best course of action.
“We’ll look at the portion of the law that deals with protection of others, that is in this case, the threat was not to the officer himself but to somebody else,” Marsico said. “And whether the use of deadly force was justified to protect others in this circumstance, that will be the focus of the investigation.”