The circumstances surrounding the events that led to the fatal police shooting of 23-year-old mother Korryn Gaines are currently still unfolding—including how Gaines’ 5-year-old son was shot in the arm—but there are more than a few things about what is known so far that aren’t quite adding up.
Here are 7 of them.
1. This video posted to Korryn’s Instagram account during negotiations with police shows her young son calm, unharmed and in no way appearing as a “hostage.”
2. Police admitted to firing first after Korryn allegedly threatened to “kill them” if they didn’t leave from outside of her apartment.
Korryn’s apartment was surrounded by at least a dozen police officers at this point, so the likely hood that ONE woman with ONE gun would’ve actually be able to shoot and kill armed police officers in protective gear seems slim to none. Why not continue to wait her out rather than risk harming the child who was inside the house with her?
3. Multiple reports claim police have not specified whether Korryn’s son was shot by police or Korryn herself.
This consistent narrative seen in nearly every news story reporting on the incident seems to suggest that it was possibly a shot fired from Korryn’s gun that struck her 5-year-old son. This seems highly suspicious considering that he was sitting in her lap at the time of shootout with police and was shot in the arm.
4. Who was the man inside the apartment with Korryn?
The man who police say was wanted for assault ran out of the apartment with a 1-year-old child in his arms and was immediately apprehended by police on the scene. He was later charged with second degree assault and released on his own recognizance. What does he know about what happened?
5. Commenters on Korryn’s social media pages have referenced a second video posted during the stand off that has since been deleted.
Did such a video really exist? And if so, who took it down and why?
6. The Baltimore County press release on the incident says it is “not yet clear” whether or not officers involved were wearing body cameras at the time of the confrontation with Korryn.
The explanation for this was that the police body camera policy is only “weeks old” in Baltimore. This excuse seems an unacceptable one given that tensions between the police and the African-American community have been high for quite some time now.
7. Who did Korryn feel she needed to protect herself from 2 weeks before she was killed?
A video posted to Korryn’s Instagram account 2 weeks ago shows her loading a shotgun while sitting next to what appears to be papers proving she purchased the gun legally. In the accompanying caption, she thanks her father for teaching her how to protect herself and says she got the gun last September. “Gotta thank my dad for teaching me how to protect myself (cells) …nd i gotta thank myself (cells) for teaching me who i need protection from,” she wrote. “Hope they sending in clones im waiting tho. They threw me a charge too late, got my “Big Girl” September of last year. Legit w/papers. Thought i was gon have to take out a n—a nd realized i had a bigger problem. F–k it Let’s dance, i got some rhythm.”
Hopefully investigators will be able to shed more light on this case in the coming days ahead.
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