<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"On Saturday, a 25-year-old Virginia woman named India M. Beaty was shot and killed by local police officers in a parking lot, where cops were staking out an unrelated investigation. At 1:20 a.m., police witnessed an altercation between India and an unarmed man, during which she held what appeared to be a handgun. According to a news release, the cops \u201Cprovided verbal commands\u201D to drop the weapon. The release says India \u201Cmade a threatening motion with the handgun\u201D and \u201Cinvestigators discharged their service weapons.\u201D \n\nWhile officers thought India was brandishing a handgun, she actually wasn\u2019t \u2014 it was a replica similar to the one 12-year-old Tamir Rice was holding when he was killed last year. The Virginian-Pilot says India was the third person to be killed by Norfolk, Virginia police this year, and the second in just over a week. That particular police department has not yet been outfitted with body cameras, which would offer insight into this tragic case. \n\nhttps://twitter.com/MerrisBadcock/status/711979527145132032?lang=en\n\nIn 2015, The Washington Post conducted a yearlong study of fatal shootings by police officers, a project prompted by the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Although the majority of victims brandishing a weapon were white, the study found that 3 out of 5 victims \u201Cexhibiting less threatening behavior were black or Hispanic,\u201D which means that police officers are more likely to use their service weapons against unarmed individuals of color than whites. At the same time, white shooters exhibiting very threatening behavior \u2014 like the two drunk men who \u201Cshot up\u201D an Idaho Walmart with BB guns \u2014 are arrested without incidence. Clearly something needs to change on a systemic level to prevent tragic shootings of unarmed individuals like India, and equipping departments with body cameras is a start that will likely make individual officers more cautious in their actions. \n\nOur hearts go our to India&amp;#39;s family and fiance\u00E9 during this difficult time. \n\nRelated:  9 Black Lives That Were Cut Short by Police in 2015\n\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.teenvogue.com/story/black-woman-killed-virginia-police-holding-fake-gun>