Police were justified in shooting armed Pa. woman: Delaware AG

By RANDALL CHASE, The Associated Press

DOVER, Del. (AP) — Police were justified in shooting and wounding a Philadelphia woman they confronted last year as she was shooting her estranged partner, the state attorney general’s office determined in a report released Thursday.

New Castle County police officers Brooks Fitzpatrick and Christopher Knight encountered Portia Herndon in the parking lot of a Newark apartment complex on Sept. 9. The encounter happened a few hours after Fitzpatrick had responded to a domestic incident involving Herndon and the victim earlier that day.

Fitzpatrick returned to the apartment complex that evening in response to a report that the victim had been threatened with a handgun and that the tires on her mother’s car had been slashed.

Upon arriving, Fitzpatrick heard a gunshot and saw a woman kneeling on the ground with her hands in the air. He then saw another person, later identified as Herndon, standing over the woman in “a posture of somebody who more or less was about to execute somebody.”

Fitzpatrick told investigators he then heard more gunshots and saw a muzzle flash, prompting him to fire two or three shots at Herndon, who turned from the victim and began advancing toward him, leading to several more shots being fired. Knight, who had arrived at the scene shortly after Fitzpatrick, also opened fire on Herndon.

Investigators determined that Herndon had fired nine rounds from her handgun, while the officers are believed to have fired 25 rounds, 21 by Fitzpatrick and four by Knight.

Both the female victim and Herndon were treated for multiple gunshot wounds.

Investigators with the attorney general’s office concluded that the use of deadly force by the officers was legally justified “in both self-defense and in the defense of others.”

Herndon has been indicted on two counts of attempted murder, three counts of reckless endangering, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, criminal mischief, and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child.

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