The mother of a woman filmed being fatally shot by a police officer after she shot him has conceded her late loved-one was in the wrong. Lisa Holbert-Gooch spoke after watching footage of daughter Nika ‘Nicole’ Holbert shoot at Officer Josh Baker during a traffic stop in Nashville, Tennessee, last Friday.
But Lisa questioned whether Baker could have handled the stop – which saw him kill Nika after she first shot him – with better control. Lisa, who works as a corrections officer, told the Tennessean: ‘I’m not saying Nicole was right.
‘Nicole was wrong. Totally. She had no business in that situation. But this is the life she chose, and nobody could do anything about that until she decided to change.
‘Now when I look at this (video), there is no opportunity for change. It’s over. I just wasn’t prepared to watch her die on TV.’ Lisa, who is Nika’s biological aunt, but adopted her when she was eight, added: ‘Why was she out of the car? It’s like he let her do what she wanted to do.’
Nika was pulled over by Baker in Nashville last Friday after the black Chevy Camaro she was driving flashed up as belonging to a man wanted on outstanding drugs charges.
That suspect – Demond Buchanan – was not in the car, with Nika initially cooperating calmly with Baker. She was filmed calling her biological mother to ask for help.
But the situation escalated after Baker found suspected drugs, prompting Nika to run away, get in the car, and open fire on Baker as he tasered her.
He was shot in the torso, and managed to shoot back and injure Nika before she sped off.
That shot left Nika mortally-wounded, and she crashed her car at a nearby junction, then died shortly afterwards.
Baker also faces questions over whether he had probable cause to search Nika’s bag, although Nashville Metro Police have backed him, and say he attempted to follow de-escalation procedures correctly.
The injured cop had surgery for his bullet wound, and is set to make a full recovery.
Meanwhile, Lisa Holbert-Gooch told of how Nika had suffered an awful childhood which saw her rescued from a house without electricity or water, where drugs were being used.
Lisa, who now lives in Mississippi, adopted Nika and her two siblings from her brother and his girlfriend, while also raising her three biological children as a single mother.
Nika struggled to overcome the trauma of being removed from her home, and her life ‘went downhill’ after she graduated high school, Lisa said.
And Nika suffered further distress when her brother David was convicted of murdering his roommate in 2019, and sentenced to 25 years in jail.
Sharing her distress at the latest tragedy to hit her family, Lisa said: ‘That was all over the news. And now this is all over the news.’
Nika’s death is now being investigated by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and local prosecutors, who will share their report when it is completed.
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