A mourning grandfather is calling for the arrest of a Fayetteville police officer who fatally shot his 22-year-old granddaughter in front of him, CBS 17 reported.
Rick Iwanski said he’d “like to see justice for” his granddaughter, Jada Johnson, and thinks that “the officer that killed her needs to go to jail.”
The shooting occurred around 10 p.m. on Friday at Iwanski’s home on Colgate Drive in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Officers responded to a call about a break-in at his home. He explained to the officers that Johnson suffered from mental health issues and had just been released from a psychiatric hospital. Iwanski said that she was convinced her ex-boyfriend would break in and kill her.
Johnson’s breakdown led her to pull a gun and threaten to commit suicide, according to the police.
“The officers were not threatened, verbally.” the grandfather stated. “Yeah, there was a gun, but it was down.”
An officer tackled Johnson to the ground, and another shot Johnson multiple times in front of her grandfather, grandmother and two-year-old daughter.
Iwanski said that the officers could’ve de-escalated the situation without it resulting in death.
“When she put the gun down, they should have [tased] her, bean bagged her, took her down, then. Why didn’t they do it then?”
Fayetteville police made a different claim regarding Johnson’s gun and attempted to justify the trigger-happy officer’s actions.
“For over an hour, the officers pled with this young lady, tried to get this young lady to put this weapon down. Tried to get the help she wanted,” Fayetteville Police Assistant Chief James Nolette told CBS 17.
A doorbell camera showed the moments Fayetteville police arrived at the home before Johnson’s death.
The case was turned over to the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, but there aren’t any further details.
Iwanski feels the situation wouldn’t have ended in tragedy had the officers been trained to respond to issues involving mental health issues.
