A video released Friday by Toledo police shows a police officer shoot a woman through the front door of her central Toledo residence after she swings at one of them through a door crack as police try to kick in the door.
Erica Allen, 26, was shot by police Wednesday morning after she locked herself and her three children, ages 10, 6, and 2, inside a house, following “a mental episode,” during which she stabbed her grandmother and locked her out before a neighbor called 911, according to police accounts, the video, and the 911 recording.
Shot three times during an attempt to rescue her children, she died shortly before midnight Wednesday after surgery at ProMedica Toledo Hospital, Toledo police Chief Mike Troendle said, speaking Friday at a news conference in the safety building downtown.
The first shot struck the woman in the face, and the second and the third shots hit her in the stomach and arm, Chief Troendle said.
The video shows Officer Allie Missler reaching in to try to push the door open, at which time it opens a bit. Through the crack a hand swings with the knife clutched in it can be briefly seen, at which time the officer recoils.
“Actually when I first saw the video, I thought for sure she actually was cut the way she jumped back so fast,” Chief Troendle said. “So Officer [Cherokee] Tabb, seeing that and believing his officer's life is in danger, uses his firearm to protect her life and shoots one round.
“We do believe that one round struck her as it went through the door. … We believe that round actually struck her in the face.”
Once the officers are inside the door, one uses a Taser, slowing the woman down but failing to incapacitate her. The officers can be heard talking about the kids being in the same room. They eventually ran up the stairs, with their mother chasing after them, according to police.
The other two shots that hit the woman were fired by Officer Patrick Fischer, a SWAT team member-in-training about 20 minutes later, in the attic, where the woman locked herself and the children, Chief Troendle said.
There is no video of the shooting in the attic because the officer involved did not have a body camera, he said.
“Shake the devil off, Shake the devil off,” the children can be heard in an audio released by police, chanting and banging on something, repeating the phrase at least a dozen times while officers keep asking if anybody was hurt and not getting an answer before the SWAT team enters the attic.
This led the officers to believe the children were in immediate danger, the police chief said.
“So, if somebody is in crisis … we try to de-escalate. We try to use our training, our crisis intervention training, to try to talk them down and try to get them to help,” Chief Troendle said. “There's a lot of things that are different here.
“She's not communicating with us. She is, as a matter of fact, using her kids to … do things that [gets] our officers really worried about that this is really escalating badly.”
Officer Fischer shot the suspect in the attic after she began walking toward the children holding the knife, causing her to go to the ground. He then shot her again after she stood up and continued toward the children with the knife in hand, Chief Troendle said.
The incident began with officers responding to a disorder about 8:15 a.m.
The video shows the suspect’s elderly grandmother, who was holding a white cloth to her face, meeting the police outside the residence and telling them that her granddaughter stabbed her and then locked herself in the house with her three children.
The grandmother can be heard asking the police to get the children out and that her granddaughter “just went off” and was talking about “demonic things.”
The case remains under investigation.
The two officers who fired their weapons in the incident were each placed on a three-day paid leave, Chief Troendle said.
“The release of this information, particularly the video and audio within hours, or in worst cases days of an event, puts Toledo ahead of the curve in terms of transparency,” Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz, who attended the news conference, said. “... That is a serious and traumatic event for community. But we do think the transparency of gathering together as quickly as possible to share what we know is a valuable exercise.”
Officer Fischer, 42, was hired in October, 2013. Officer Tabb, 31, joined the force November, 2016.
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