The heartbroken sisters of the Connecticut mother killed by Capitol cops after a wild car chase through Washington said Friday she was a troubled soul — not a “terrorist.” Miriam Carey had her 19-month-old daughter, Erica, in the car when police shot her and “didn’t deserve to die like she did,” Valarie Carey, who lives in Brooklyn, told the Daily News. “Deadly force was not necessary,” said the grieving sister, a retired NYPD transit police sergeant who lives in Bushwick. “They could have rammed the car or disabled the car.” “There had to be something else they could have done,” chimed in Amy Carey, a registered nurse who lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant. “She didn’t have to die. To know a child was in the car, too, why did they shoot?”
Authorities have not said whether they were aware of the child’s presence in her mom’s leased black Infiniti. Little Erica was not hurt and was placed in protective custody, the family said late Friday. “We don’t know a lot about our niece,” said Amy Carey. “We’re told she’s safe.” She added it was unclear who would eventually get custody of the child. “We don’t know if (Erica) is going to be with us or the father. She should be amongst our family. That’s where she should be.” The sisters confirmed that Carey, a 34-year-old dental hygienist, suffered from postpartum depression and psychosis and that she had been prescribed medication for depression. “But that doesn’t mean she’s crazy or that she deserved to have been killed,” Valarie Carey said.
Carey and Erica were supposed to visit them in Brooklyn this weekend, the sisters said. But they could not explain why Carey rammed into a White House checkpoint on Thursday and then led police on a lethal car chase through Washington. “Only Miriam knows exactly why she was in D.C.,” Valarie Carey said. “Unfortunately, my sister is not here to speak for herself. People are dragging her through the mud.” Family lawyer Eric Sanders said, “There shouldn’t be a rush to judgment.” “A mother is dead and whether the police actions were appropriate must still be determined,” he said.
The Carey sisters spoke out after they identified their sister’s body at the morgue — and amid reports that the doomed woman believed she was the “Prophet of Stamford” and that President Obama was bugging her Stamford condominium. Carey was so delusional that her boyfriend, Eric Francis, 54, sicced the cops on her twice in 2012, ABC News reported. But the sisters said all that was news to them. “My sister was a beautiful person,” Valarie Carey said. “She had aspirations to be a dentist. She was a loving mother with a lot to live for. I don’t want my sister demonized.” Family friend Dennis Jones also questioned whether police used appropriate protocol when they took action that left a child “motherless.”
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