Independence police chief justifies officer killing mother and baby in November shooting

Independence Police Chief Adam Dustman has announced an internal investigation into a November police shooting that killed a mother and her baby, while applauding the officer who fired the fatal bullets.

The announcement of this investigation comes almost a week after the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office declined to press criminal charges against the officer, identified by Dustman as Jordan White. In a news release, Prosecutor Melesa Johnson said her office could not “prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the shooting officer used excessive force.”

Three officers responded to a call for an alleged assault on Nov. 7 at Oval Spring Apartments that resulted in the deaths of Maria Pike, 34, and her 2-month-old daughter Destinii.

“We do not believe that there is a path to charging this specific case under the law,” Dion Sankar, Jackson County’s chief deputy prosecutor, told Pike’s loved ones Friday.

At a Thursday news conference nearly a week after that decision was announced, Dustman identified the responding officers as White, Chad Cox and Derek Karr. White and Cox were the officers who were first on the scene, and White fired four shots that killed the mother and daughter. All three were placed on administrative leave after the shooting.

White and Cox remain on leave but are full-time employees, Dustman said. Karr, who has since returned to duty, was responding to the call with a mental health worker at the time of the shooting.

When police entered the third-floor apartment, body camera footage showed Pike standing in a closet, which was also Destinii’s nursery, holding the infant. White and Cox spent around 12 minutes talking with Pike, who never let go of her daughter, before Pike 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 all 12 minutes with Pike, fired the four fatal shots.

During Thursday’s news conference, Dustman called the shooting justified because Pike had a weapon.

“That woman retrieved a knife that was concealed inside of that apartment that she knew,” Dustman said. “She retrieved that deadly weapon and she charged at the officers. Those were her decisions. And I am very, very sad that those decisions were made, but those were hers and hers alone.”

Doug Blodgett, second vice president for the Missouri Fraternal Order of Police and an Independence police officer, attended the briefing to show solidarity and echoed Dustman’s thoughts about the incident.

“They operated flawlessly within the way that they were trained,” Blodgett said. “Their actions were justified and unfortunately necessary.”

Blodgett also wanted to make clear that the union supports officers during an officer-involved shooting investigation, and does not “keep bad officers.”

“We respond to make sure that we are there to represent our officers and ensure that, to that end, that their rights are protected and that their mental health is taken into consideration,” he said.

Dustman said he talked to all three officers on Wednesday, calling them “strong and resilient.”

“They’re all doing as well as can be expected, but it does weigh on me,” he said. “It weighs on me in a world in which we are that line to keep our community safe, and this job is becoming more and more dangerous.”

‘We are not robots’

White has a total of 17 years of law enforcement experience, Dustman said. He has been with the Independence Police Department for four years over two stints. White is also a former United States Marine, Blodgett said.

Cox has spent 23 years in law enforcement, spending more than a decade in Independence. Karr has spent his two years of law enforcement experience in Independence, Dustman said.

Dustman spent almost 30 minutes defending the officers’ actions.

“From the time that she retrieves that knife to the last shot that is fired is four seconds. From the time the first shot is fired to the time that the last shot is fired is two seconds,” he said.

“When you slow it down and you look frame by frame, you think, ‘Okay, well, isn’t there a point here where, one could say, hey, there’s no longer a knife here.’ In reality, that doesn’t happen in real-time. That’s just who we are as human beings.... we are not robots.”

After the news conference, police sent the entire video to media, showing the full encounter from their arrival to the moments after the shooting when Destinii was rushed out and White was trying to resuscitate Pike.

In the video, after White fired his weapon, he immediately requested for Cox to grab Destinii, who was bleeding from her skull and pronounced dead at a hospital according to the prosecutor’s office, and radioed for an ambulance.

White put handcuffs on Pike, who was also bleeding and suffered four gunshot wounds, while Cox grabbed the baby and rushed to get her assistance.

“Oh my God!” screamed Mitchell Holder, Destinii’s father.

“You killed the baby too!” Holder screamed at White.

After almost a minute, Karr entered the room and gave Pike chest compressions while White worked to remove the cuffs.

“Well, she was trying to stab me,” White shouted back at Holder at one point.

“All I could see was the knife. I couldn’t even see the baby anymore,” White said to Karr.

“Masha, stay with them,” Holder shouted as officers gave Pike chest compressions.

Officers entered the apartment shortly after, and White left the apartment.

‘Best practice policing’

Loved ones of Pike and Holder have called for White’s firing since the incident happened.

“He should have gotten some kind of punishment out of this,” Talisa Coombs, Destinii’s paternal grandmother, previously told The Star. “He don’t need to be a police officer.”

In a meeting with the prosecutor’s office last Friday explaining their decision to not criminally charge White, prosecutors empathized with the family and said they wished White could have responded differently.

“Do I wish they would have done something different? Yes. Do I have to analyze the facts as they appeared at the time? Yes,” Sankar said.

Thursday, Dustman said the incident was “textbook” for how officers should respond to these kinds of situations.

“This is current best practice policing,” he said. “We don’t get to dictate the outcome of that sometimes and unfortunately and sadly and tragically, sometimes, you know, a loss of life occurs.”

Dustman said he understands why the family feels that way but stood firm in supporting his officers.

“Their lives are forever changed, and that breaks my heart,” he said. “But that can also occur, and the officers’ actions can be reasonable and justified at the same time.”

The chief gave no timetable for how long the administrative investigation could take or what punishment, if any, the officers might face.

This story was originally published March 20, 2025 at 7:46 PM.