Lawsuit settled over Independence police shooting that killed mother and baby
A wrongful death lawsuit over the fatal shooting of a mother and her baby by Independence police in November 2024 has been settled.
Through attorney Tom Porto, family members of Maria Pike and her two-month-old baby, Destinii, filed the suit last July against two police officers who were involved in the shooting. The suit alleged that the officers knew Pike was mentally ill and escalated events that day without waiting for a mental health professional who was called to the scene.
All parties in the suit agreed to waive a jury trial. A Jackson County judge signed off on the settlement Friday, according to online court records.
“Further, Plaintiffs have agreed that a fair and reasonable apportionment of the settlement proceeds are an equal split between Tom and Lynn Pike and Mitchell Holder with the Pikes receiving half and Holder receiving half,” the judgment said.
The judgment did not reveal the amount of the settlement.
Tom and Lynn Pike, Maria’s parents, appeared at the Friday hearing virtually, records show. And Holder, Destinii’s father, appeared in person.
The two officers — Jordan White and Chad Cox — were represented by counsel.
The Star could not reach officials with the city of Independence or its police department on Saturday. When the suit was filed last year, Independence city spokeswoman Rebecca Gannon said that “at times, our officers encounter challenging situations that require immediate action.”
“The dedicated men and women of the Independence Police Department risk their lives daily to ensure the safety and security of the citizens of Independence,” she said.
In a news release sent out after Friday’s hearing, Porto questioned what good any settlement is if change doesn’t come as well.
“The settlement ought to be the beginning,” Porto said. “This unprecedented tragedy demands swift changes in every part of the police department’s mental health emergency response process, from officer training to leadership accountability.
“‘Best practice policing’ should mean making sure this never happens again.”
A domestic dispute call
On Nov. 7, 2024, Independence police were called to Oval Spring Apartments in Independence, where Holder lived with Pike and Destinii. Officers responded to a domestic dispute where Holder’s mother reported that Pike had hit her.
Holder spoke to police and told them he had refused to let his mother inside the apartment, but she came in “unlawfully” through a sliding glass door, the lawsuit said. Holder said he and Maria Pike asked his mother to leave and then physically forced her out of their apartment.
When White and Cox entered the third-floor apartment, body camera footage showed Pike standing in a closet, which was also Destinii’s nursery, holding the infant. Pike eventually moved to the bed.
The two officers tried to talk with Pike, who never let go of her daughter, before she reached with her right hand toward the nightstand for a concealed butcher knife.
Pike raised the knife over her head and moved toward officers. White, who spent 12 minutes with Pike, fired the four fatal shots, killing the mother and her baby.
Jackson County Prosecutor Melesa Johnson declined to file charges last year in the shooting, saying in a news release that her office could not “prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the shooting officer used excessive force.”
She further said that while the deaths were “devastating and tragic,” the officer’s actions were “responsive and defensive in nature.”
An ‘extraordinary’ case
The news release Porto’s office sent out regarding the settlement called the case “extraordinary.” Not just because of Destinii’s young age, how she and her mother were killed, or the settlement. But, the release said, “because of how police leadership defended the shooting in the days that followed.”
“Independence Police Chief Adam Dustman described the officer who fired the shots as a ‘long-tenured veteran of law enforcement,”’ according to the release, “and said the officers’ response that day ‘was exactly as they were trained to perform, and they did so according to that training and expertise.’”
Porto said in the release that the case “exposes the limits of our mental health emergency protocols and the way we deploy officers in crisis.”
“According to the words of the police chief, this is what our current ‘best practice’ can offer,” he said. “An infant and postpartum mother senselessly paid the ultimate price for that.”
Reporting by The Star’s Nathan Pilling and PJ Green contributed to this report.
