A D.C. woman got horrible news on Christmas when police told her that her son had been killed in a shooting the previous day. Imagine her shock when her son called hours later to wish her a "Merry Christmas."
According to NBC Washington, police visited the home of Karen Robinson during the early hours of Christmas to tell her that her son, Raymond, had died following a robbery that culminated in a Christmas Eve shootout with police. :
About 2 a.m. Christmas Day, a detective knocked on Karen Robinson’s door and asked to see a picture of her son. After she showed them a picture of Raymond Robinson, they told her he was dead.
I asked them, Are you sure this is my son?' Karen Robinson told News4. And they said, Yes, ma'am, we’re sure. ...I couldn’t believe it, and then I said, Well, what happened? and they said, Well, he shot at police, and police returned fire on him. And I’m like, No. That’s not my child.
About eight hours later, the grief-stricken Robinson received a shocking phone call—it was Raymond:
He says, Merry Christmas, Mom, and I said, Who is this? she said. He said, Mom, this is Raymond. I said, Boy, they said you died.
The Associated Press reports that authorities declined to wait for fingerprint confirmation that would've told them that the victim of the shooting was not Robinson. Instead, they acted on a "tip" about the identity that they got from the hospital. The victim was identified as 33-year-old Gregory Marcus Gray on Monday, the same day that D.C. police apologized to Karen Robinson.
Noting that police should obviously confirm a victim's identity before reaching out to the family, Robinson told NBC Washington that she "[C]ould've had a heart attack." Although her son is alive and well, you have to feel her pain.
[via NBC Washington]
