Florida police bodycam video shows a Jacksonville officer knocking on a door before a woman rushes out, stabs her, then is ultimately shot and killed by law enforcement.
Officer Elizabeth Mechling was responding to a dispute at a home in April, but the video was just released this week. In it, Mechling knocks on the door, steps back and appears to be waiting for someone to answer.
Then the suspect, identified as 29-year-old Leah Baker, rushes out with a knife.
“What the f—,” Mechling shouts, stumbling onto the sidewalk.
Then she calls it in: “I’ve just been f—— stabbed!”
The knife struck her in the arm, she says later in the video. After calling it in, Mechling orders Baker to drop the knife, and she does. When Mechling orders her to get on the ground, she ignores the command and reaches for the knife again.
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The video shows Mechling firing two shots, which both appear to miss Baker.
Baker then stands in place with the knife as Mechling backs away.
More officers arrive, including Sgt. John Nobles, who orders Baker to drop the knife again – and again she does so. In the video, as officers approach, she refuses orders to get on the ground, picks it up again and lunges toward them.
The officers open fire. While bleeding in the street, Baker also allegedly began hitting a police K-9, Jacksonville-based WJXT-TV reported. She later died in a hospital.
Baker’s mother, Charity Baker, told the outlet that her daughter had mental illness.
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“I can’t condone my daughter’s actions, but at the same time I have fought with different hospitals to get the help she needed,” she said.
After an investigation into the incident, the state’s attorney’s office determined the shooting to be justifiable.
It was Nobles’ fifth officer-involved shooting and Mechling’s first, according to Action News Jax.