Shouts and gunshots: Witness recalls fatal shooting of unarmed Sedalia woman by deputy
First he saw the police lights. Then he heard shouts followed by gunfire.
A man who witnessed some of the moments leading up to Saturday’s shooting death of 25-year-old Sedalia woman by a Pettis County sheriff’s deputy returned to the scene Tuesday. Shortly after, Missouri Highway Patrol, which is investigating the shooting, announced Hannah Fizer did not have a gun when she was killed.
The Star is not naming the man, at his request, because he said he feared professional consequences for speaking about what he saw.
Fizer was driving to her job at an Eagle Stop convenience store about 10 p.m. Saturday when a deputy tried to pull her over for allegedly speeding and driving carelessly on Thompson Boulevard in Sedalia.
She ran a traffic light at West Broadway Boulevard and kept driving on U.S. Highway 50, according to the highway patrol. She pulled off near the Asian Buffet and Lemaire’s Cajun Catfish and Seafood House.
During the traffic stop, Fizer was “not compliant” and refused to identify herself, according to the highway patrol. Fizer told the deputy she was armed and threatened to shoot him, the patrol said, citing a preliminary investigation.
The incident “escalated” and the deputy shot Fizer, the patrol said. She died a short time later; the deputy was not injured.
Family and friends of the Sedalia woman continue to say the behaviors law enforcement described don’t sound like the woman they knew.
Shouts, then gunshots
The man who witnessed the shooting said the emergency lights first got his attention as he sat outside a nearby hotel.
He saw a county sheriff vehicle following a car off U.S. Highway 50. Neither seemed to be speeding, he said.
Then he heard a man shout “stop, stop,” followed by five “pops.”
The man walked closer to see what happened before more police arrived and taped off the area, restricting access.
“That’s when I saw him covering her up with a sheet from head to toe,” he said.
The woman was lying face up, her body perpendicular to her car, he recalled, pointing to the area where the deputy car came to a halt just behind the woman’s. Her feet rested on the ground near her open driver’s side door.
He watched for a couple hours as more officials arrived. Some took photos of the crime scene, occasionally pulling back the sheet to take pictures. Others looked in her car, some shining flashlights into the windows as they peered around.
When the man went back to his room at 2:30 a.m., she was still lying on the ground, he said.
‘By 10 o’clock, she was dead’
Fizer was often five minutes late to work, but she always showed up, said Cora Hathaway, a co-worker and good friend of Fizer.
When Hathaway took her 2-year-old daughter, Olive, to the store, she would run to Fizer, her face lighting up.
“She was not this monster they tried to say that she was,” Hathaway said Tuesday as she stood yards from where her friend died just days earlier. A blood stain still marked the concrete.
When a customer was being rude to one of her coworkers, Fizer came out from the back and took a stance by the counter next to her friend, Hathaway recalled.
“She was the type of person who would’ve stood up until her legs gave out for what was right,” Hathaway said.
Fizer was always smiling. When someone needed a shift picked up, she was there to help, her colleagues said.
Jennifer Archambault, 37, is the manager at Muddy Creek Eagle Stop where Fizer was headed to work the night she was killed.
Fizer made everything better, Archambault said. In the days since her death, people dropping by the Eagle Stops have been asking how the employees are doing, often expressing anger at Fizer’s killing.
Another one of Fizer’s colleagues, Tammy Halferty, 56, and State Fair Eagle Stop manager Roni Edde, 34, saw Fizer about 8 p.m. Saturday as she waited in line to fill up her gas tank.
She was in good spirits, Edde said. He recalled how Fizer popped inside the store to say, “Hey girl.”
“And by 10 o’clock, she was dead,” Halferty said.
‘We want answers’
Authorities on Tuesday did not have new information on what unfolded in the moments leading up to the shooting.
Pettis County Sheriff Kevin Bond on Monday said deputies are not equipped with body cameras and their vehicles do not record video.
The highway patrol called the Fizer investigation a priority. But it could be up to a month before all reports are complete and information is compiled to send to the district attorney, who will determine if anyone will be charged.
Melissa Rath, 35, another one of Fizer’s managers, believed the deputy could have used a stun gun instead of his firearm.
“How did it get to the point where it escalated where she was shot and killed?” Halferty asked. “We want answers.”
The deputy remains on paid administrative leave pending the investigation, which is routine in police shootings, Bond said.
He has worked for Pettis County since 2007 and had no previous complaints against him, the sheriff said.
“This whole thing just seems like a cover-up,” Fizer’s friend, Holly Morgan, said Tuesday. “It’s dragging on and it hurts and it’s sad and it just sucks.”
The shooting comes amid increased scrutiny of officer-involved killings since the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Floyd was a black man who died after a white police officer pressed a knee into Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes as he pleaded for air and eventually stopped moving. Both Fizer and the deputy who shot her were white.
About a dozen people, including Hathaway, stood with signs outside the sheriff’s office Tuesday evening.
“No justice, no peace, prosecute the police,” the group shouted before chanting Fizer’s name.
“She wouldn’t keep her mouth shut about something that was wrong,” Hathaway said.
People continue to ask questions about Fizer’s death because she would’ve done the same for any of her friends, Hathaway added.
Anyone with information or video of the shooting is asked to contact the Missouri Highway Patrol’s Troop A Headquarters at 816-622-0800 and ask to speak with an investigator.
Gun violence will be the subject of a new, statewide journalism project The Star is undertaking in Missouri this year in partnership with the national service program Report for America. As part of this project, The Star will seek the community’s help.
To contribute, visit Report for America online at reportforamerica.org.
This story was originally published June 16, 2020 at 9:20 PM.
