Source: Facebook/St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department (OFFICIAL)
A mother has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against two St. Louis police officers, alleging that one of them fired at her daughter at least 29 times without warning during a confrontation in the city’s Dutchtown neighborhood. The daughter, 26-year-old Janita Vance of Pagedale, died at the scene near West Iowa and North Gasconade avenues on August 16, 2024.
The lawsuit, reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, directly challenges the police department’s original account of what happened that morning. Police previously said Vance was armed with a weapon, according to department spokesperson Mitch McCoy, and that she turned the gun on herself after officers opened fire. Vance’s mother’s suit instead claims an officer shot at her daughter nearly 30 times before she ever raised a weapon toward police. Vance was identified in the days after her death as a resident of Pagedale, according to the St. Louis Homicide Tracker…