Three police officers have been placed on paid leave after a 17-year-old girl with a history of mental illness was shot dead in the lobby of a Texas police station
Kristina Coignard entered the lobby of the police station in Longview on Thursday evening and used an assistance phone to tell a communications employees she needed an officer.
Officers responded to the lobby and 'were confronted by a white female who threatened them'.
Coignard then 'brandished a weapon and 'made threatening movements'. She was shot four times.
She was brought to Good Shepherd Medical Center and pronounced dead by a Justice of the Peace.
Texas Department of Public Safety officials have declined to identify the weapon, but Longview Mayor Jay Dean was told a 'female wielding a knife entered into the police department', according to the Marshall News Messenger.
Three Longview police officers were placed on paid leave after the shooting and the Texas Rangers were called in to investigate the incident.
Coignard was living with her aunt, Heather Robertson, before her death.
Robertson said her niece had been battling mental illness, including bipolar disorder and depression, and that the teenager had been hospitalized twice following suicide attempts,Think Progress reported.
She said Coignard 'was only violent with herself' and has questions about what happened.
'I think it was a cry for help. I think they could have done something.'
'They are grown men. I think there is something they are not telling us.'
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I know she had a weapon but I wonder how America reacts to a 17 year old white girl being killed.
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