The video shows two officers responding to a 911 call from the cousin of 28-year-old Katelyn Hall, who had locked herself in a bathroom and was harming herself.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Calling it a graphic and “heartbreaking” response to a woman in a mental health crisis, Louisville Metro Police on Friday released body camera footage showing officers fatally shooting a suicidal woman holding a jagged piece of porcelain inside an apartment complex near Jeffersontown.
The video shows two officers responding to a 911 call from the cousin of 28-year-old Katelyn Hall, who had locked herself in a bathroom and was harming herself. In an opening statement, LMPD Deputy Chief Emily McKinley said Hall was not “eligible” for a deflection response because she was actively attempting to end her life — she had slit her wrist, ingested cleaning products, and was armed with a piece of glass.
On its website, Seven Counties Services states that deflection cannot be used in situations involving safety risks, including when someone has already taken steps to harm themselves or when there is an active threat involving a weapon.
According to Louisville Metro Emergency Services, deflection services were called nearly 5,000 times in 2025, with the Mobile Crisis Response team dispatched close to 950 times.
McKinley said officers must respond to situations deemed too dangerous for deflection, noting that each case presents a “unique and, often, chaotic challenge” for responding officers.
“LMPD is open and willing to try anything that prevents something like this from every happening,” McKinley said during Friday’s news conference. “This is not something we ever want to experience. We don’t want our officers to experience. We don’t want communities to experience this or family members. This is a terrible situation to be in.”
McKinley said patrol officers responded at 7:45 p.m. on Friday, March 27, to the 9800 block of Vieux Carre Drive following a report of a person “experiencing a mental health or behavioral health crisis.”
The woman was described as “highly agitated, incoherent and making suicidal statements.” Officers at the scene attempted to de-escalate the situation through verbal communication and requested additional officers equipped with less-lethal tools. In the video, Officers Robert Baker and Robert Gabbard tried to calm the situation from outside the bathroom, but Hall repeatedly shouted, “Katelyn is already dead” and “It’s over.” By that time, McKinley said Hall had slit her wrists and lost a significant amount of blood.
“This happened extremely quickly,” McKinley said, adding that the incident is already being used in officer training. “This happened in less than a second.”
The video shows Baker and Gabbard waiting to breach the bathroom door until backup arrived. Crews with the Anchorage-Middletown Fire Department arrived shortly after and forced entry. When the door opened, Hall exited the bathroom rapidly with a large, sharp object — described by McKinley as a “jagged” one-foot piece of porcelain from a broken toilet. Both officers then fired their weapons. Hall was taken to UofL Hospital, where she later died.
McKinley said she could not explain why neither officer used a taser or other less-lethal options, noting that Baker and Gabbard will address those questions during investigations by the department’s Public Integrity Unit and Public Safety Unit.
“Our tasers take time to deploy,” McKinley said. “You have to fire twice. So you fire one probe and you put another probe somewhere else. So it takes a little bit more time to effectively use a taser in a situation like this. It could be very difficult when a subject is advancing toward you in such a confined space.”
LMPD policy states: “When handling non-criminal behavioral health calls and wellness checks, officers are strongly encouraged to:
• Evaluate the dangers to the public (refer to Safety Priorities, SOP 9.1.1);
• Create distance;
• Wait for appropriate backup;
• Exhaust de-escalation tactics; and
• Consider disengagement.
Force should be used only when the medical or behavioral health emergency creates an imminent threat of harm to the person or others, and when such force is reasonably necessary to mitigate that threat.”
Baker joined LMPD on Feb. 20, 2023, and has received 10 letters of commendation, along with one letter of reprimand for a “chargeable accident.” In 2024, a Louisville man wrote Baker a thank-you letter after he chose not to shoot him during a mental health crisis.
Gabbard joined the department five months after Baker and has received 19 letters of commendation with no reprimands.
Leave a Comment