A day before her daughter’s funeral, Terry Boarts is still not only mourning her daughter’s death, but also asking why it happened.
“My husband and I both, we were at the edge of the road where they killed her,” Terry Boarts said. “It’s just senseless. I mean, I called 911 because I thought they would help get the help she needed. I would have never called 911 if I thought they were going to kill my daughter.”
Thirty-six-year-old Melissa Boarts of Montgomery was shot and killed when two Auburn Police Division officers fired their weapons at her in Macon County Sunday evening. Terry Boarts initially called law enforcement to help her daughter, who Terry Boarts said was suicidal and could potentially have cut her wrists with a pocketknife. The unidentified officers are on paid administrative leave.
Auburn police followed Melissa Boarts down Interstate 85 into Macon County, where police say she stopped her vehicle, exited and charged officers with a weapon in a threatening manner.
On Thursday, Montgomery-based attorney Julian McPhillips, flanked by Terry Boarts and Melissa’s identical twin sister, Melinda Boarts, held a press conference to refute allegations that Melissa set out to commit "suicide by cop" and to call for the Auburn Police Division or State Bureau of Investigations to release dash and body camera footage of the incident.
Auburn Police Chief Paul Register said earlier this week that as per procedure, the APD has turned over its evidence, including dash and body camera footage, to the SBI, which is investigating the incident. Register also said he is confident the officers’ actions will be understood when video footage is released.
McPhillips said the SBI has told him that it will be up to the Macon County district attorney as to when the footage will be released.
“They (the APD and SBI) shouldn’t be trying to withhold information and stonewall us like this, and we only want to know the truth,” McPhillips said. “The truth shall set you free — if it’s the true truth. And then give this family a little peace about what happened. If their daughter and sister did something so terrible, we need to know about it, but she didn’t have a gun or a firearm on her. All she had was a little pocketknife.”
McPhillips acknowledged that the APD is following procedure by turning evidence over to the SBI; however, “We’re saying eventually we’ll be able to see it anyway, and why not let us see it now unless they’ve got something they really need to cover up,” he said. “We ought to be able to see it.”
In response to allegations that Boarts was planning “suicide by cop,” in which one purposely instigates police officers to shoot and kill him or her, McPhillips and family members countered that Boarts was not the one who called police in the first place, but rather, it was her mother who called for help.
“Because the identical twin sister here had a GPS and could see where her sister was, she called her mother, who was following about a mile or less down the road, and the mother could see her daughter driving, so she called 911 … and told them what was going on with the daughter, would they please help the daughter.”
Terry Boarts said she and her husband were stopped on the road down which police officers followed Melissa Boarts before she exited her vehicle and shots were eventually fired. Terry Boarts said it was several hours before she knew that her daughter had been killed.
“I could see down there, but I could not see the vehicle once the road ended,” Terry Boarts said. “They made us stop. They would not let us go down there. If I knew at the time they shot her, I would have gone down there. I would have gone and been down there with my daughter.”
Former Auburn City Council member Arthur Dowdell, who said he voted in favor of dash cameras and body cameras in Auburn while serving on the council, attended the press conference Thursday and spoke in support of McPhillips and the family.
“I see in this case, there’s other things that could have happened in this case,” Dowdell said. “They could have used Mace, they could have used their Tasers — all these things could have happened, and it didn’t have to lead to deadly force in this case. We work hard to try to make it equal and fair in the city of Auburn, and I’m very dismayed to know that this happened to this family. We’ve been fighting for justice for many years in the city of Auburn.”
Melissa Boarts reportedly suffered from manic depressive and bipolar disorders.
“We think this is awful, not only for her, but really as an example of what’s happening to mental health folks around the country getting shot and killed by police,” McPhillips said.
“It tarnishes obviously the city of Auburn, it tarnishes law enforcement, it tarnishes our country, our state, to have this kind of thing going on. That’s why we’re going to stand up to it as hard as we can.”
