INDEPENDENCE, Mo. - The Independence police chief says his officers acted accordingly in the deadly police shooting of a mother and her baby. “These officers, when faced with a deadly force encounter by a female who decided not to be put into a situation, but chose to grab a butcher knife and charge at them, acted exactly as they were trained to do,” Chief Adam Dustman said. Kansas City metro businesses hit by multiple weekend burglaries Last week, Jackson County Prosecutor Melesa Johnson declined to file charges against law enforcement in the November 2024 shooting death of Maria Pike and her baby. Pike’s sister spoke to FOX4’s Hannah King. Independence Police Chief Adam Dustman says he has sympathy for the family. He also says some of the claims made by Pike’s family members about what happened are not true. “There is one person responsible for the events of that day. One person decided to grab a knife, and one person set those horrifically tragic events in motion, and that is who is responsible,” Dustman said. And that person, Chief Dustman says, is Pike, who he believes, in his mind, used her child as a human shield intentionally. This is his most blunt assessment and first thoughts since that November day, responding to a family who feels that justice has eluded them. “You’re telling me if I’m faced with the same situation and the result is either what happens, happens, or my officer goes home with knife wounds or doesn’t go home at all. I expect that they act the way they’re trained to,” Dustman said. His officers were responding to a domestic call from the child’s father. According to prosecutors, police had a right to be in the apartment, and they even say police tried to de-escalate the situation for almost 12 minutes. That was before Pike grabbed the knife and lunged at the officer, and he pulled the trigger in just milliseconds. Although she decided not to charge, Johnson said that she wished that circumstances had been handled differently. "While I can understand and sympathize with someone who says they wish the circumstances were different, of course we wish that, but we have to respond to reality, not fantasy,” Dustman said. Dustman also explained that the department only has three mental health co-responders, so it’s impossible for them to go out on every call. In this case, police determined that the call, which started as a domestic call, warranted the help of a co-responder. Driver taken to hospital after crashing into Overland Park apartment building That is the decision the officers make when they arrive and assess the scene, and they made that decision here. But Pike lunged at the officers with a knife before the health professional could make it to the room. The chief expects these two officers to be back on the street in a matter of weeks. He will also hold a news conference later this week to further speak to his community. ...read more read less