begin quote from:
Deanne Choate wasn’t touching a gun when police entered her room. …
Family Handout
TRIGGER HAPPY
03.02.16 9:01 PM ET
Cops Woke Up Naked Woman, Ordered Her to Show Them a Gun, Then Killed Her
Deanne
Choate wasn’t touching a gun when police entered her room. In fact,
they demanded she find the weapon for them—and shot her anyway.
Deanne
Choate was sleeping naked under the covers when a trio of cops flicked
on the lights and came barreling into her bedroom with guns drawn,
believing she posed a lethal threat.
The
police officers from Gardner, Kansas, roused her awake and ordered her
to show the gun her boyfriend told them she had fired. When she did that
after throwing on a hoodie, police opened fire anyway, putting her to
sleep for good.
A
year after Choate’s death, officers Robert Huff, Justin Mohney, and Jeff
Breneman remain on the force, having dodged criminal charges or censure
for killing the 53-year-old woman. But their department was slapped
with a wrongful-death lawsuit in federal court this week by Choate’s
children. Armed with bodycam footage of the incident, the Choates blame
police for being trigger happy when they were supposed to help their
mother.
“They
say she was pointing a pistol at them,” Choate’s 37-year-old son
Michael Weddington told The Daily Beast in an exclusive interview,
referring to body camera video footage captured from the tragic night
that Choate’s family members reviewed.
And
after video footage from a cop’s body camera was finally offered for
the family to view, Weddington is certain the cops overreacted and could
have spared her life.
“Why did they have to get all commando-style?”
It
was around 9:45 p.m. on March 26 last year when police responded to a
911 call by Choate’s boyfriend, Andrew Musto, claiming “she was under
the influence of alcohol, may be suicidal and had a gun,” according to
the civil lawsuit.
The document suggests cops arrived to neutralize “a disturbance with a gun at the home.”
Earlier in the evening, Choate and Musto were drinking at their favorite bar about a mile away and began fighting.
“They
had gotten buzzed and [Musto] probably said something stupid because
he’s a cocky dude,” Weddington said. “She pulled his card and left the
restaurant.”
Back home, they fought some more until their fireworks escalated to a gunshot.
Neighbor Gary Smethers told The Daily Beast that he remembered the first of many shots from that evening.
“Before the cops showed up we could hear she took a shot outside with that pistol,” Smethers remembered.
Minutes
later, he said, cops rolled up without their lights or siren on,
choosing to park at the cul-de-sac instead of in front of the home.
Smethers and his wife, Theresa, proceeded to watch television before the staccato sounds of gunfire returned.
“We
hear the shots and all we have to do was look out the window and it was
all in plain view,” he said. “There had to be at least three to four
shots and there was a space between the first one and the last.”
Once
inside, according to the body camera footage that was shown to Choate’s
family, cops flicked on the lights and charged for Choate’s bedroom
upstairs.
Her
son said the 115-pound Choate “is completely naked under there and says
to them, ‘Could I have something to put on? I’m naked. I didn’t call
you here. What do you want?’”
The cops wanted Musto’s .22 derringer.
“Where’s
the gun?” one cop repeated, Weddington said. The civil lawsuit has the
cops repeating the command: “We know you have a gun.”
Weddington said the cops were certain that—despite her barely awake, fully naked state—Choate was dangerous.
“They tell her, ‘Ma’am, you need to get out of bed so we can clear this room.’
“She says, ‘I’m 53 years old, I don’t just bounce out of bed.’”
As
they hand her a hooded sweatshirt to cover herself, Weddington says
Choate allegedly discovers the derringer under the covers and informs
the cops.
“She says, ‘Oh, here it is.’
“She goes to lift her blanket and get up and the cop says ‘Drop the gun. Drop the fucking gun… Boom-boom-boom-boom.”
Choate
was struck twice in the chest and once in the abdomen, according to
Weddington who has a summary of the autopsy. (The Johnson County morgue
refused to disclose any of its related findings and information was
suppressed because a staffer there says the case remains under
investigat 
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