FORT WORTH, Texas — The woman wounded by a Fort Worth police officer this week asked the officer to shoot her and was holding a knife at her side when the officer fired, footage released by the department Thursday shows.
Shortly after 11:30 p.m. Monday, an officer was dispatched to the 5900 block of Greenspoint Drive, near Boca Raton Boulevard and Oakland Hills Drive, where a woman had called and said she was “bleeding out” and attempting suicide, police said.
In clips from a body-worn camera, the officer is seen knocking on the door before yelling “Police, open the door” twice.
After the second time, the woman opens the door and says “hello,” to which the officer responds “What’s going on? Stop. Talk to me.”
Without answering, the woman picks up a knife that is laying on the carpet. The officer yells “Drop the knife — do it now” and the woman, crying, repeatedly pleads “Shoot me” and “please.”
“I don’t want to shoot you, drop the knife,” the officer says.
At one point, the woman drops to her knees in the middle of the room. When she stands up — holding the knife in one hand at her hip — she walks toward the officer, who continues to back up outside of the apartment. Fort Worth police Chief Neil Noakes said because the apartment was on the second floor, the officer was backed into the top of a staircase with “no room to safely retreat further.”
Once the woman enters the doorway, shaking, she leans against the wall with the knife still at her side. The officer fires one time, striking her in the “hip region,” according to Noakes.
The woman drops the knife and falls backward into the apartment. Noakes said the officer, in addition to a second one who responded to the apartment after the gunfire, immediately began giving the woman aid.
The woman, 20-year-old Kaitlyn Balogun, was treated for injuries that were not considered life-threatening and released from the hospital later that night, police said. She was booked into the Tarrant County jail on a charge of aggravated assault on a public servant, and has since been released, court records show.
Her attorney could not immediately be reached for comment.
The officer was not injured, police said.
Noakes said the officer fired because she perceived an “imminent, deadly threat” while just a few feet from the woman. In the footage released by police, the woman does not appear to be making any sudden movements toward the officer when she fires.
When asked what the best practice is for an officeR under those circumstances, Noakes said it’s often to find a place to take cover, but added “given the fact that this was a small landing on the second floor, there really weren’t many options.”
The department’s major-case unit, internal affairs and the Tarrant County district attorney’s office are investigating the shooting, the department said.
