The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department released body-worn camera footage on Thursday of a deputy shooting a 53-year-old woman who threw a knife toward deputies while they were investigating a home burglary last year.
Deputies were responding to a burglary in progress in the 49-000 block of Highway 74 in Palm Desert at 2:45 a.m. on Dec. 10. In a “critical incident video” that includes portions of the body-worn camera footage, Sheriff Chad Bianco said a woman told dispatch she was hiding in her bedroom because an unidentified armed man was in her house. She can be heard saying someone is inside her house and trying to kill her in the dispatch recording.
The video of the shooting showed deputies announcing themselves to people inside the home. One of them asked anyone inside to come out with their hands up and nothing in them.
After a man complies and is cuffed on the floor without incident, one of the deputies says, “Hey, let me see your hands” and “Hey, put the knife down, put the knife down, put the knife” as woman walks into the room. The woman, identified as Kelly Cronn, is then told by deputies to drop the knife about seven times. Instead, she threw the knife and the video cuts after a gunshot is heard.