MYERSTOWN, Pa. (AP) -
A county prosecutor says state police were justified in shooting and killing a woman after she rammed a police vehicle during a pursuit last month in Pennsylvania.
Lebanon County District Attorney Pier Hess Graf on Tuesday cited “violent, reckless, and dangerous actions” by 42-year-old Charity Thome before troopers opened fire.
Troopers said the Richland woman had been wanted on a trespassing complaint at a North Lebanon Township home and was reported trying to break into the same residence just before 2 a.m. on March 16. Township police pursued her and state police took up the pursuit when the vehicle entered Jackson Township.
A police immobilization technique was used to stop the vehicle, but police say Thome tried to elude the officers and rammed an occupied North Lebanon Township police vehicle. Troopers got out and ordered Thome out of her vehicle, but they say she refused and continued to accelerate into the police vehicle, and they opened fire.
Graf said an autopsy concluded that Thome had methamphetamines and amphetamines in her system, stimulants the prosecutor said “typically cause irrational thought and erratic action.”
The prosecutor said the troopers “feared multiple outcomes” since they couldn’t see the township officer and didn’t know whether he was inside or outside of the patrol vehicle. Graf also said the suspect could have continued to ram the cruiser or could also have reversed and run over officers at the scene.
Graf said in a statement that “The totality of Thome’s actions, the realities of the situation and the split seconds which required the troopers to act all prove this shooting was justified.”
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