Cop mistakenly shot alleged Missouri shoplifter in ‘terrible accident,’ attorney says

The Missouri officer who shot an accused shoplifter didn’t mean to use her gun — it was “weapon confusion,” her attorney said, according to KTVI.

Attorney Travis Noble says it was a “terrible accident” when Ladue police officer Julia Crews shot the shoplifting suspect in the Ladue Crossing Shopping Center last week, KTVI reported. That’s because she meant to grab her Taser— and not her gun, he said, according to the TV station.

On Wednesday, the 37-year-old was charged with second-degree assault in connection to the shooting, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

“It is our position that the officer’s actions were reckless,” St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell said, according to the newspaper.

In Missouri, “state law defines second-degree assault as recklessly causing serious physical injury or recklessly causing physical injury with a firearm,” the Post-Dispatch reported.

Hall is currently on “paid administrative leave,” according to KTVI.

The woman who was shot — identified by her family as Ashley Hall — was running away to avoid arrest when Crews said she was going to use her Taser, KSDK reported.

“The officer gives a command and says, ‘Taser, Taser, Taser,’ (warning that she’s about to use the Taser) and discharges what she thought was her Taser … and when she got up to her she realized (the suspect) had been shot,” Noble said, according to KTVI.

Hall, 33, was resisting arrest when the gun was fired, police said, according to KMOV.

“She’s devastated. You try to talk to (Crews) and she literally breaks down into tears,” Noble said, according to KMOV. “You have an officer who may draw her weapon a thousand times in training and then once pulling the Taser and then all of a sudden they are in the heat of the moment. Muscle memory kicks in and they pull the firearm instead of the Taser.”

Hall is hospitalized and “fighting for her life” after five different surgeries, her father Robert Hall Sr. said on Wednesday, according to the Post-Dispatch. She is expected to survive, according to the newspaper.

Halls’ family said they have forgiven the officer, but they are “seeking justice,” according to KSDK.

“I’m going to pray for (Crews) and pray for my daughter at the same time,” Hall’s mother Karen Carter said, according to KSDK. “I’m trying to be humble and be the good Christian I was taught to be.”

Police say Hall was one of two women who the Schnucks grocery store accuses of trying to steal a cart full of groceries, the Post-Dispatch reported.

This story was originally published May 2, 2019 at 1:20 PM.