Leslie Linthicum sums up the lingering problems with this killing and finds some historical nuance (follow the link for the whole story).

A sad tale of police, guns and a family history | Albuquerque Journal News By Leslie Linthicum / Of the Journal PUBLISHED: Sunday, June 1, 2014 at 12:05 am

“This shooting just made me feel so profoundly sad,” someone said to me the other day. Me too. And I’ve been pondering why.

Is it because Hawkes was the first woman to join the list of people killed by city police officers since 2010? Because she was 5-foot-2 and barely 100 pounds? Because she was really just a kid?

Is it that it seemed avoidable – a forced confrontation in the middle of the night to flush out a suspect in a 2-week-old auto theft case? Couldn’t an arrest warrant in the morning have kept everyone safer?

Is it the autopsy findings – a bullet shot into her left ear, another into her left bicep and another through the top of her right shoulder – which seem hard to square with the stated scenario of Hawkes stopping, turning and pointing a handgun just before she was shot?

Mary Hawkes, 19, was the first woman killed by APD since 2010.

Is it the autopsy findings of scrapes and bruises on her chest, both knees and the backs of both forearms?

Is it the absence of the officer’s lapel cam video that would answer those questions about what she and the officer were doing when she was shot?

Each time someone is killed by police, there’s a rippling of effects – the personal tragedy to the family, the toll on the police officer who has taken a life and the public policy discussion about whether it was an avoidable use of deadly force.

With that in mind, I also wonder whether the Hawkes killing continues to nag me because of her family history, which brings additional layers of nuance and complication.

A sad tale of police, guns and a family history | Albuquerque Journal News