Report sheds light on deadly police shootout in Gastonia

GASTONIA, N.C. — An investigative report is shedding new light on a deadly shootout between a woman and Gastonia police officers earlier this year.

Channel 9′s Ken Lemon got a new report from the medical examiner’s office for the shooting of LaPorshia Shanks. But it doesn’t include one thing that Lemon learned from family and friends: Shanks was a kind woman, but trouble at home drove her to take some time off work before something snapped in May.

On Tuesday, the victim’s mother spoke with Channel 9′s Ken Lemon and said she witnessed the entire thing.

Pam Shanks told Lemon she was close with her 31-year-old daughter. She said domestic problems made her daughter take medical leave from her job.

“She had been going to see a psychiatrist,” Shanks told Lemon.

On May 18, Pam got a phone call from LaPorshia’s roommate saying LaPorshia was destroying her home on King Street.

Pam got there just after two police officers arrived.

According to an investigative report from the medical examiner’s office, LaPorshia “opened the door, she began firing at police with a 5.56 rifle and a .38 caliber handgun.”

One officer was hit in the leg. The two officers returned fire.

“I kept asking them to quit shooting my baby, and they just kept on shooting her,” Shanks told Lemon.

According to the autopsy report, LaPorshia had 16 gunshot wounds. The report says, “One of the SBI agents at the scene believed both officers emptied their 17-round magazines during the shooting.”

LaPorshia’s life-long friends are still stunned by the news.

“It was like I had lost my own child,” said Florence Byrd, a neighbor of Shanks’.

Lemon asked if the incident on May 18 sounded like normal behavior for Shanks.

“That does not, it honestly does not,” said Erin Sanders, another neighbor.

They say she owned guns, but she wasn’t threatening. They said she often bought food with her own money and gave the food to people with no home.

“She gave them mittens and hats and stuff, she was good as gold,” Shanks said.

Channel 9 has asked for a statement from the Gastonia Police Department. They didn’t comment because the case is still under investigation by the SBI.

The officer who was shot is still improving. Both officers are still on administrative leave.

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