A Texas woman who was repeatedly shot by deputies who mistook her for an intruder is recovering and speaking out for the first time about what happened.
In an interview with a local ABC News station, 28-year-old Eboni Pouncy said she and a friend had returned to her friend’s apartment when her friend realized she had forgotten her keys. Pouncy said the pair broke a window to get inside the apartment.
A neighbor told the news station he thought that someone was trying to break into the apartment and called 911. Two Harris County sheriff’s deputies arrived at the Houston home in the early hours of the morning on February 3.
In body camera footage released Saturday, you can hear officers knock and say, “Sheriff’s office.” “
“We got into the house. We were watching TV. There was a knock at the door at that time, and I got up, and I grabbed my gun, and I went to go greet who was ever at the door,” Pouncy said in the interview.
Pouncy said in the interview that while she heard the knock, she didn’t hear the deputies identify themselves. As the video from the body cam continues, a deputy tells Pouncy to drop her gun, and then both deputies immediately begin shooting. “One of the officers re-loads their weapon and continues firing before the two retreat downstairs and notify colleagues through their radios that shots were fired. After the shooting, a gun was recovered near the apartment entryway,” according to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, ABC News reports.
When asked why she went to the door with a gun, she said: “Because the window was broken, and I believed I was taking safety precautions at that time of night, and so I was just trying to do the right thing.”
Pouncy was struck five times, including twice in the chest. She said she didn’t realize the gunshot sounds at first and that it took her a while before discovering she’d been shot.
“I started seeing holes in the walls as I was standing there, and then I realized it was something coming through the apartment,” she said.
The bullets did not strike Pouncy’s vital organs, but noted civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing Pouncy, says she was traumatized and that her experience will have long-term effects.
“We all know that every American citizen right now is keenly aware of their Second Amendment rights and their rights to bear arms,” Crump told ABC News. “Why is it a presumption that we don’t have a right to the Second Amendment? This reminds you of the tragic killing of Breonna Taylor, where her boyfriend was a law-abiding gun-registered citizen. And yet, the police busted in their front door, shooting and killing Breonna.”
Pouncy, the mother of a one-year-old girl, currently uses a walker to get around as she continues to recover. “Breathing too hard, laughing. Everything hurts,” she said. “I’m not able to be as attentive with my baby. She’s only 1. So that’s probably the hardest part.”
The two deputies involved in the shooting have been placed on leave as an internal investigation is conducted. And per standard practice the case has also been referred to a grand jury.
