In the span of about 30 minutes, Baltimore Police officers who arrived at the scene of a behavioral health crisis went from telling a family member they had no ability to enter the home to breaking down the front door with a Taser in hand.

Police on Wednesday released body camera footage depicting the final moments of 70-year-old Pytorcarcha Brooks, who was shot and killed on June 25 in her West Baltimore home by officers intent on taking her to the hospital for reasons that have not yet been fully explained by the Police Department.

The footage reaffirms concerns raised after the shooting by experts in de-escalation tactics, who said it was unclear why officers would breach the door in that situation, given that Brooks was armed only with a knife and posed no threat to anyone other than herself.

Experts advised that it would have been more prudent to slow down and “wait out” the behavioral health episode, which largely echoes the Police Department’s own de-escalation policy.

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The video presented by police at their headquarters on Wednesday shows a very different picture.

Officers express some hesitation before deciding to kick down the back door to Brooks’ home, then fall back when the diminutive 70-year-old sticks her hand out, waving a short knife.

“We just want to speak to you, you have to put that down,” Officer Stephen Galewski, a three-year veteran of the department, appears to tell Brooks in the video.

Galewski then appears to unholster his Taser and discusses entering the front door instead with another officer, Stephen Colbert. Galewski says he is concerned that the placement of a refrigerator near the back entrance could get them “bottle necked” and “stabbed.”

Moments later, Galewski and Colbert approach the front door. Colbert kicks the first front door open, and Galewski follows him to kick down a second front door directly behind it.

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‘I’m going hot with a Taser’: Body cam footage raises questions

“I’m going hot with a Taser,” he appears to say in the footage before entering.

The door bursts open and officers confront the elderly Brooks, who appears short in stature, at the base of a staircase. She mutters, “Come on,” while brandishing a small knife.

One officer deploys a Taser, and Brooks appears to fall back on her couch, but then jumps back to her feet.

The footage is partially obscured by the chaos that ensues. Moments later, Galewski appears to fire his Taser, then falls to the ground. Brooks appears to loom over him with a knife. Colbert then appears to fire three shots, striking her at least twice.

At the press conference, Police Commissioner Richard Worley said the decision to breach both entrances to the home was still under investigation and that investigators have not yet been able to interview the officers involved to determine their reasoning.

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In a statement Wednesday, Mayor Brandon Scott touted progress made in strengthening the city’s behavioral health response system but recognized that instances like these prove more could be done to manage the load of crisis calls “with the intentionality, care, and urgency our residents deserve.”

“Unfortunately, not every call can be handled by crisis response teams, especially when there are threats of violence or reasonable concerns for safety,” Scott said in a statement. “We will evaluate every piece of this incident to identify whether changes need to be made to ensure an outcome like this never happens again.”

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Brooks had a long history of interactions with law enforcement, with at least 20 calls for assistance this year alone, according to police. At the press conference, police explained that officers arrived to her house on June 25 after receiving two 911 calls.

The first call came from a social worker who came to do a wellness check and didn’t receive a response, police said. The second came from a family member, who told them that Brooks was acting violent and had tried to stab him.

The footage shows a man in a blue shirt lead officers around to the back of the house and inform officers of her mental health issues. The man puts the officers on the phone with other family members. Police tell the man and his family that they are restricted from doing much to remove her from the residence and advises them to look for long-term care.

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“We can’t force her to open up the door and go to the hospital if she don’t want to,” Colbert tells a family member.

Moments later, that calculus appears to change without much discussion. A Baltimore City Fire Department employee approaches the back door and attempts to get Brooks to answer questions

A still image from body cam footage released on Wednesday, July 9, 2025 by the Baltimore Police Department, shows police after breaking down the front door and entering the home of 70-year-old Pytorcarcha Brooks.
A still image from bodycam footage released on Wednesday by the Baltimore Police Department shows police breaking down the door before entering Brooks's home. (Baltimore Police Department)

That employee, who has not been publicly identified, tells Brooks in the footage: “I’m trying to be nice here, Miss Brooks. If you don’t answer my questions, I’m going to have to take you out of here.”

Worley alluded to the heat and odors coming from the home as reasons why officers and fire department personnel thought they had to enter the home.

“You heard it on the video, she had to go to the hospital to get evaluated,” Worley said. “It was 97 degrees and you see the house is all shut up.”

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But Ernie Stevens, a law enforcement veteran who helps police develop de-escalation tactics, said the footage made it clear that the shooting could have been easily avoided.

Stevens said officers at the scene were hurrying, not assessing their options, not getting enough information about Brooks, and should have waited for a supervisor to arrive before making further moves.

In the meantime, the officers could have handed control over the scene to an officer trained in de-escalation tactics.

Baltimore Police have said one such officer did respond to the scene, but the agency is facing a shortage of them, and has struggled to convince its officers to take de-escalation training.

The Police Department, which is under federal oversight, has been told by its independent monitoring team to increase the number of sworn patrol officers with the training as well as to hand over control to them at crisis scenes, which didn’t appear to happen before Brooks’ shooting.

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“Once the knife appeared, it became all about the knife and not about the person,” said Stevens, who now works as deputy division director of behavioral health at the Council of State Governments Justice Center. “That’s very common. They saw a knife, they didn’t see a person in need of help. So they lost their focus right away.”

Per state law, the shooting is being investigated by the Maryland Office of Attorney General’s Independent Investigations Division.