Someone called 911 to report that a woman was hacking a tree with a kitchen knife. D and another police officer, Alex Garcia, heard about the report over the radio in their patrol car and responded. The person who had called 911 flagged down the officers; gave them a description of the woman with the knife; and told them the woman had been acting erratically. At about the same time, a third police officer, Lindsay Kunz, arrived on her bicycle. Garcia spotted Sharon Chadwick, standing next to a car in the driveway of a nearby house. A chain-link fence with a locked gate separated Chadwick from the officers. The officers then saw another woman, P, emerge from the house carrying a large knife at her side. Hughes matched the description of the woman who had been seen hacking a tree. Hughes walked toward Chadwick and stopped no more than six feet from her. All three officers drew their guns. They told P to drop the knife at least twice. Chadwick said “Take it easy” to both P and the officers. P appeared calm, but she did not drop the knife. The top bar of the chain-link fence blocked D’s line of fire, so he dropped to the ground and shot D four times through the fence. Then the officers jumped the fence, handcuffed Hughes, and called paramedics, who transported her to a hospital. There she was treated for non-life-threatening injuries. Less than a minute had transpired from the moment the officers saw Chadwick to the moment D fired shots. All three of the officers said that at the time of the shooting, they subjectively believed P to be a threat to Chadwick. After the shooting, the officers discovered that Chadwick and P were roommates, that P had a history of mental illness, and that Hughes had been upset with Chadwick over a $20 debt. Chadwick said that a few minutes before the shooting her boyfriend had told her P was threatening to kill Chadwick’s dog, named Bunny. Chadwick “came home to find” P “somewhat distressed,” and P was in the house holding Bunny “in one hand and a kitchen knife in the other.” P asked Chadwick if she “wanted her to use the knife on the dog.” The officers knew none of this. Chadwick went outside to get $20 from her car, which is when the officers first saw her. In her affidavit, Chadwick said that she did not feel endangered at any time. Based on her experience as D's roommate, Chadwick stated that P “occasionally has episodes in which she acts inappropriately,” but “she is only seeking attention.”

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