LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A video showing childhood innocence juxtaposed with a domestic violence shooting has one Louisville parent upset with how Metro Police responded to an incident earlier this week.
Wednesday afternoon, Louisville Metro Police responded to a domestic violence shooting at The Rye Apartments near the Jeffersontown border. A woman was shot in the leg in what police called a domestic violence incident.
The apartment complex, on Doral Court, is right across the street from Bluegrass Academy's Hurstbourne location.
Samira Manjgafic's four-year-old daughter was outside playing as the police response arrived.
"You see those little kids and to them, it's 'Yay, police officers!'" Manjgafic said. "And for them not to even tell them 'Go inside' or anything, is kind of mind-blowing."
In the video, you can see kids yell "firetruck!" and "policeman car!" as first responders arrive. A staff member is also confused as to what's going on.
Police and fire did not have their emergency lights activated because, as LMPD spokesperson Sgt. Matt Sanders told WHAS11, "Officers did not feel there was a danger to the public upon LMPD's arrival."
Sanders said the suspect had already surrendered, without any force used by police.
"If this turned into a barricaded situation, LMPD would notify dispatch and issue 'shelter in place' warnings," he said.
Despite this, the daycare's staff and parents say they would have loved to have this information, but couldn't get it. The daycare owner told WHAS11 they had to call both Metro EMS and Jeffersontown Police to get any information as officers wouldn't stop to inform them.
"They could have waved, they could have said something, they could have done some hand movements or something just to get the kids inside. They didn't do none of that," Manjgafic said.
She said seeing all of those emergency vehicles near her child's daycare made her think of the worst-case scenario, coming just days after the school shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville.
"You never know. You never know who's crazy or what they're going to do," Manjgafic said.
LMPD and Metro EMS will notify residents via LENS Alert for "an active aggressor, severe weather and Haz Mat situations to events like missing persons, public health concerns, emergency drills, and impacts to transportation services, like bridge and street closures."
People can sign up for a LENS Alert by texting "LENSAlert" to 67283.
A LENS Alert was not sent in this case.
"In terms of notifications, outside of LENSAlerts, MetroSafe only sends alerts when the first responders on the scene ask for an alert to be sent," Jessica Wethington, a spokesperson for Metro EMS, said.
"If it's not publicized, if we don't know about it --if you don't know something, how can you know about it?" Manjgafic said, talking about how she didn't know about any of these alerts.
It appears there's no immediate fix to prevent this situation from happening again, but LMPD did not feel it was an immediate danger.
The owner of Bluegrass Academy said police have stopped by and told them about past incidents, just not the one on Wednesday.
"If it wasn't up to [daycare staff], the kids would still be out there watching it unfold," Manjgafic said about her appreciation for the daycare staff, who took the kids inside right after the video was recorded.
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