Witness to shooting death: ‘We didn’t see a weapon’

CHINLE

A woman who said she and her family witnessed the shooting death of Loreal Tsingine by a Winslow police officer on Sunday says she did not see Tsingine pull a weapon of any kind.

“We saw the whole thing, and we did not see her with a weapon,” said the witness, who asked to remain anonymous because she said she is “afraid” of the Winslow police.

According to a press release from the Winslow Police Department, Tsingine, who allegedly was resisting arrest after a shoplifting incident, had threatened the officer with a pair of scissors. The officer discharged his firearm five times, according to an Arizona Department of Public Safety spokesman. Tsingine, 27, was pronounced dead at the scene.

The officer involved in the shooting is on administrative leave pending an investigation by DPS’s Major Crimes District, according to the press release.

The alleged witness, whose information could not be verified, said she, her husband and young son were driving home from returning movies to the RedBox at the Circle K at 317 N. Williamson Ave. in Winslow about 4 p.m. Sunday when they saw a young woman walking down the sidewalk on Kinsley Avenue, carrying a case of beer.

Two police cars approached and pulled over.

“We were in between the two cop cars,” she said. The family pulled their car over as well, thinking the officers might be stopping them for a traffic violation.

The woman said a police officer “jumped out of his vehicle and dashed” toward the pedestrian.

“She was just stopped, looking straight at him,” the alleged witness recalled. “She wasn’t trying to run.”

The next thing the family saw was the woman and the police officer engaged in a struggle, the woman said.

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