Her family was throwing her a baby shower. They’re now planning funerals after a police standoff turned fatal.
It was just a few days before her baby shower, and Sara White was bleeding inside a garage. When police tried to help her, it kicked off a hail of gunfire and an hourslong police standoff.
When it was over, White, a registered nurse who was eight months pregnant, and her 16-year-old son, Arkeyvion White, were found dead at the home in Stockbridge, Georgia.
“We don’t know how we’re going to do it,” White’s mother, Kathie White, told CNN affiliate WSB. “We were looking forward to holding another grandbaby.”
The family had been planning a surprise baby shower this weekend, Kathie White said. Now, they’ll be planning funerals.
Police were called Thursday morning to a home after some “sort of domestic dispute,” according to the police department in Henry County, just south of Atlanta.
There was blood on the driveway when they arrived and White, 39, was lying on the other side of the garage door. But the officers couldn’t immediately tell why.
Right after an officer kicked the front door down, a chaotic scene unfolded.
The officer was shot in the chest and hip; and somehow he maneuvered his way into the garage to help White. Outside, a few other officers scrambled to take cover and one of them was shot in the hand.
“Don’t come in here,” the gunman yelled at the officers. “I got a lot of shot…. I got a hostage.”
Police body camera video shows an officer frantically kicking the garage door, trying to make a hole for the wounded officer who was inside. Within seconds, a door panel broke and the officer jumped out.
After firing several rounds, police said the gunman, Anthony Tony Bailey Jr., 47, barricaded himself inside the home. He was White’s boyfriend and had Arkeyvion somewhere in the home.
For more than 15 hours, police negotiators were able to speak with Bailey and continually urged him to let the boy go. Police said they didn’t believe the boy had been injured.
“We are going to wait as long as we can,” Capt. Joey Smith told reporters Thursday afternoon. “Hopefully he would do as he said and release this individual.”
Around 3 a.m. on Friday, police went inside the home.
Henry County Police Chief Mark Amerman said he first ordered officers to deploy gas so Bailey could have a chance to step out of the home. When he didn’t, law enforcement officers went in.
“We tried to do everything we could possibly do to bring this to a peaceful resolution,” Amerman said.
But police found Bailey, White and the teenage boy dead.
Arkeyvion’s body was in an upstairs bedroom and officers found Bailey dead in another bedroom. He had an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.
Kathie White said her daughter was due in only a few weeks and they had already chosen a name for White’s baby.
“We already had given him the name … Antonio,” Kathie White said.
Police said the wounded officers, Taylor Webb and Keegan Merritt, were taken to Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta.
Amerman said the officers were still recovering from their injuries Friday.