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SWAT team discouraged entering NE Kan. home before deadly shooting

OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — Body camera footage shows that law enforcement ignored the advice of SWAT team members when they entered a suburban Kansas City home and fatally shot a mentally distressed woman.

Howard- photo courtesy Johnson County sheriff from a June 2017 arrest

The Kansas City Star reports that it obtained 23 hours of footage tied to the Aug. 23 shooting of 26-year-old Ciara Howard in Olathe after suing.

It shows that officers had been briefed that she was acting irrationally and had access to her boyfriend’s handgun when they arrived to arrest her on a warrant. It was for walking away from the county’s adult residential center where she’d been required to report after her latest conviction. None of them were for serious or violent offenses.

Olathe police said in a statement that Howard’s death was a “tragedy for everyone involved.”

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