‘He shot my baby.’ Witnesses detail Independence police shooting that killed mom, baby

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Oval Spring Apartments assistant property manager Gavin Delaney was walking through vacant apartments Thursday checking air conditioning units when he saw a car racing through the Independence complex.

After going to scold the driver, he saw a woman sitting on a sidewalk outside one of the apartment buildings.

The woman, Talisa Coombs, told Delaney she'd just gotten into what she alleged was a physical altercation with her granddaughter's mother, Maria Pike, and called 911.

Independence police's response to that 911 call ended with the shooting death of Pike, 34, and her two month old daughter, Destinii Hope — who were identified Tuesday by authorities from the Police Involved Investigative Team, or PIIT, a team of eastern Jackson County detectives called in to investigate police shootings and use-of-force incidents .

Before the fatal shooting, Coombs — whose son Mitchell Holder was Destinii's father — told police she would like to press charges against Pike, but Holder refused to open the door when police arrived, Delaney said.

Delaney said he went to Holder's apartment to talk to him, and eventually convinced him to let two officers inside. Inside, Delaney said Pike was sitting in the closet holding her infant daughter Destinii, who would have turned 3 months old Nov. 22.

"She was sitting in the closet, holding the baby," Delaney said, "but wasn't saying anything, wasn't doing anything."

Soon after, family allege police fatally shot and killed both Pike and her infant daughter, leaving the family in mourning after their calls for help.

Independence police have refused to say exactly what happened — refusing to even answer basic questions about the identities of the victims or their causes of death — and the only details about what unfolded in that apartment have come from the baby's family and apartment managers who witnessed the tragedy, raising questions about both what happened and the lack of transparency around it.

Holder's sister, Ashley Greenfield, spoke to The Star Tuesday. She said in the aftermath of the deadly shooting, she's become a voice for her brother, who she said refuses to return to the apartment. Holder lives with dissociative identity disorder, she said, and receives disability benefits.

Both she and Delaney say the shooting his left him distressed.

"He's really upset," Delaney said. "He wants justice for what happened."

'He shot my baby' Holder's sister said she didn't know Pike very well, and had never met her young niece Destinii.

According to Greenfield, after police entered the apartment, Pike and Destinii moved from the closet to a bed as police and Holder attempted to take Destinii away from Pike.

Greenfield said her brother — who was still inside the apartment at that time — told her that Pike allegedly reached for an object on the nightstand while still holding Destinii, when an officer shot the baby in the head and grazed Pike's neck with the first shot.

"He shot my baby," Holder exclaimed, according to Greenfield.

Greenfield said Pike didn't have a knife in her hand in the closet, but thinks she may have reached for a knife when the first shot was fired. Pike allegedly attempted to get off the bed. Then a second shot was fired at her, Greenfield said.

Independence police have only confirmed that one police officer fired at least one shot.

Greenfield believes police could have used different methods to de-escalate the situation.

"They could have tased her, they could have did all this extra stuff instead of shooting automatically," she said. "[Pike] is a 90 pound woman."

According to Greenfield, Coombs made multiple calls to the Missouri Department of Social Services before the shooting. Pike had mental health and anger issues, according to Greenfield.

Greenfield and Delaney also said a prior meeting with social services was planned, but the family did not attend.

Delaney said social services attempted to make a home visit the day before the shooting, but no one answered the door. On the day of the shooting, Oval Spring property manager Carrie Lufkin said a social services official told her they visited the apartment to take the child.

"I wish they would have came to the clubhouse, because we would have let them in," Lufkin said. "We would have let them in to save a life."

Baylee Watts, a spokeswoman with the Missouri Department of Social Services, said she could not comment at this time. Information related to specific child abuse and neglect investigations is closed and confidential under Missouri law, she said, except under very limited circumstance.

"We extend our heartfelt condolences to the family and law enforcement during this difficult time," Watts said.

After the death of a child, the DSS director can decide "whether it is appropriate to release information or findings about the case after the investigation is concluded," she said, "and the Department has had the opportunity to consider the impact of the release of information on other children within the immediate family."

Previously, another incident with Pike and Holder had alarmed the family, Greenfield said.

The couple got into an argument that ended with Pike and Destinii going to stay with one of Pike's friends. The mother and child were kicked out of the friend's home, according to Greenfield.

A "tired and exhausted" Pike escaped to the woods with Destinii, according to Greenfield. While Pike was sleeping in the woods, she rolled over on top of Destinii and had to give her CPR before rushing her to the hospital.

According to Greenfield, a social services worker told Holder to watch Pike around their child before they were sent home from the hospital. Pike admitted herself into a psychiatric unit after that incident, according to Greenfield, and was released within a few days.

Few details from police At this point, relatives who say they're heartbroken they won't get to see Destinii grow up are the only ones giving insight into what may have happened inside the apartment Thursday afternoon.

There's no indication when police officials will provide any further details of what happened and why.

Independence Police Chief Adam Dustman stood before cameras Friday, in a news conference he called, shedding little light on the shooting. Since then, authorities have remained tight-lipped.

At the beginning of Friday's briefing, Dustman said he would "not speak to the specifics of the investigation or any investigation broadly" because everything was now in the hands of PIIT. He called the news conference, he said, to speak about the broader issue of violence against children in the community.

What he did provide were the basic facts from the deadly call.

Officers received a "domestic violence disturbance" call at 1:43 p.m. Thursday with "a possible assault," the chief said.

"When we arrived, officers encountered a female who ultimately was armed with a knife," Dustman said. "And as a result of that encounter, it resulted in two fatalities, one to the armed female and one to a child."

"As you can imagine, this is heartbreaking," the chief said. "I'm a father and a husband, and just like anything that would tragically affect a family, my heart goes out to that family that was absolutely torn apart yesterday."

The officer who fired his weapon was "a long-tenured veteran of law enforcement," Dustman said. That officer and another two who were at the scene are on administrative leave.

Dustman didn't say how many shots were fired — only that "one officer fired."

When a reporter asked what the cause of death was for the mother and baby, Dustman didn't answer that either.

"I can't speak to their official causes of death as that will come from the autopsy confirmation as the investigation goes on," he said. "So I don't have that information.

"I will just tell you that as a result of that incident, two individuals are deceased, one being the female armed with the knife that I mentioned earlier and a child."

Though Destinii was just 2 months old, Dustman referred to her as a child. And when told that the family said the child was actually an infant, he said "I can not confirm any of that. I'm not going to identify or get into any sort of ages or anything like that."

Independence Police had been called to the apartment where Pike and the baby died one other time "that I'm aware of," Dustman said.

"There could be more, but again, we haven't looked into any of that as we turned it over" to the investigative team.

'Just trying to protect her home' The family scheduled a balloon release and candlelight vigil for Friday at 7 p.m. at the apartment complex. Lufkin said officials with Comprehensive Mental Health Services are at the complex for the week. She also contacted schools to advise them to provide counseling to child residents of the complex.

On her Facebook page, Coombs asked people to pray for her granddaughter.

"They should have tased the mother," Coombs posted. "They had two police officers was (sic) upstairs in the apartment with my son Mitchell and Maria."

The family created a GoFundMe account to help pay for the funeral expenses for the baby. Felisha Holder, who also identified Destinii as her niece, said in the post relatives wanted to raise enough funds so the little girl "can have a beautiful funeral."

As of Wednesday morning, more than $2,000 had been raised.

In the GoFundMe post, Holder wrote that "the bullet hit (the) baby ... in the head."

"The cops didn't even negotiate with the mentally unstable woman," Holder wrote in the GoFundMe post. "They made a bad decision by shooting a woman with a baby in her arms."

Greenfield said she is furious with her family and the state because Pike wasn't offered enough assistance.

"She's just trying to protect her home, trying to protect that baby," Greenfield said. "I see pictures, I see happiness. She didn't deserve to die."