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Seattle released audio of the fatal police shooting of Charleena Lyles - here's what we know

Jun 21, 2017, 01:29 IST

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A neighbor girl walks past a memorial outside where a pregnant mother was shot and killed a day earlier at her apartment by police Monday, June 19, 2017, in Seattle.Associated Press/Elaine Thompson

Seattle police released an audio recording and transcript on Monday of the fatal shooting of Charleena Lyles, a 30-year-old mother of four who had summoned police to her apartment on Sunday to report a burglary.

In the minutes before greeting Lyles at her apartment, two officers can be heard discussing a recent police encounter with Lyles just two weeks earlier that resulted in her arrest.

Soon after they arrive at her door and ask for details about the burglary, the officers can be heard suddenly shouting "get back" and saying she has two knives.

Lyles' family has decried the shooting and questioned why the officers had not used non-lethal force to disarm her. They said they believed Lyles' race - she was African-American - was a factor in the shooting. Lyles' family also said that she was pregnant.

"She was asking them for help with her domestic violence and they wasn't giving her none. That's why the mental breakdown started coming into play," Lyles' sister Monika Williams said at a gathering on Sunday.

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"The officers need to pay for what they did," she continued. "Even if my sister had a knife in her hand, she weighs like nothing, even if she's soaking wet. There's no way you could've taken a taser and taken her down? There's no way you could've taken a baton and knocked the knife out of her hand?"

Here's what we know about Lyles' death:

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