Mother holds kids hostage at knifepoint, officers use taser to end situation, Pittsburgh police say

PITTSBURGH — Pittsburgh police officers are being praised for how they ended a nightmarish situation.

On Thursday, officers found themselves in a standoff with a woman holding her children at knifepoint.

Channel 11 has obtained exclusive video of the situation, that at first captured the audio of the chaos that was happening behind a home on Moore Avenue in Knoxville.

After you hear the officers shouting, you see them carrying a young girl to the front yard, as they try to make sure she’s OK after she had been hit by a taser.

It’s the aftermath of a violent scenario when police say the girl’s mother, Gwendolyn Gilmore, had her at knifepoint, while also holding on to another child.

“What an incredibly dangerous situation that those two children were in,” said Beth Pittinger with the Citizen Police Review Board.

The officer made the decision to deploy his taser to de-escalate the situation and one of the probes hit the young girl, who then had a seizure, and went in and out of consciousness.

“Compared to being stabbed or having your throat cut? I think those officers did a great job managing that situation,” Pittinger added.

They put the child in an ambulance and took her to the hospital where she made a full recovery.

A day later, Pittsburgh Police Chief Larry Scirotto is praising his officers.

“Our officers showed great restraint to this entire incident. They processed, they used the appropriate level of force based on the scenario as it presented itself, and they were ultimately able to save these children,” Scirotto said.

Before the situation escalated to the backyard in Knoxville, investigators say Gilmore carjacked a man and picked up her daughter at Brashear Association — a community social service center.

The center’s executive director told Channel 11 over the phone that one of her employees called 911 because Gilmore was acting odd and was reportedly asking everyone in the center to pray and unplug electronics.

Before police got there, Gilmore grabbed her daughter and headed to the home on Moore Avenue, where she held a knife to her throat, until officers stopped her.

“They thought clearly and used the tools they had available, and as a result everyone is safe,” Pittinger added.

Gilmore is in jail and a judge denied her bond because she is a “threat to the victims and the community.”

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