A traffic stop, which has gone terribly wrong, has led to the death of 31-year-old Nika Nicole Holbert, and a police officer got seriously injured in Nashville, Tennessee.
Authorities at the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) have released videos of Officer Josh Baker and Holbert’s incident.
Body camera and dashboard camera video showed MNPD Field Training Officer Josh Baker having an exchange with the woman in a parking lot of a Dollar General store after he pulled her over on Friday morning.
According to an official statement, Baker, a 14-year veteran of Metro Police, decided to conduct a traffic stop of a black Chevrolet Camaro with the knowledge that the owner of the vehicle had six outstanding drug warrants.
It was later revealed that while Baker was the driver of the Chevrolet Camaro — it is registered to Demond M. Buchanan.
“He learned that the owner of the car, the person with the outstanding warrants, was not the person driving and a situation devolved from there into a shootout,” Metro Police Spokesman Don Aaron confirmed to the media.
At the beginning of the video, the police officer is seen pulling over the vehicle, and he immediately calls the dispatch and reveals his location, and requests another cop as a backup.
According to the footage of the encounter, Nika Nicole Holbert complied when she is asked to get out of the car.
He later asks the woman to stop searching in her purse, and she obeys and hands it over to him. As Baker searches the content of the bag, Holbert starts smoking and calls her mother to explain what is going on.
Baker then tells the woman: “Do me a favor and turn around.” And she responds by saying: “No, don’t put me in handcuffs. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
When Holbert attempts to run away, the officer holds up a stun gun and tells her several times to get on the ground, and she tells him no.
The woman gets back into the car, sits in the driver’s where she is hit with the stun gun multiple times, yet she reaches for what seems to be a weapon in the back seat.
At the moment, Officer Josh Baker yells at Nika Nicole Holbert: “Ma’am, put the gun down! Put the gun down!” Holbert appears to shoot Baker who falls to the ground.
He calls for help, and Holbert drives off and later runs off the roadway. Nika Nicole Holbert is taken to a nearby hospital and dies due to her injuries.
Holbert’s mother had this to say about the incident: “I don’t think my daughter shot him, and why does she have multiple gunshot wounds. I’m not understanding how did this turn into a shooting, and all it was is you pulled her over because you looking for the person the car belonged to. That’s my issue. And they need to explain it to me tell me like I’m a fourth-grader, why is my daughter dead?”
Baker is currently in the hospital after undergoing surgery. TBI issued a statement saying that the investigation into the shooting “remains active and ongoing.”
