Georgetown University’s women’s basketball team is catching flak for honoring a former player who was fatally shot by a police officer who she slashed with a knife.
The Hoyas’ official X account posted a tribute to ex-player Sydney Wilson, mourning her “tragic loss” last month … but now the post is drawing criticism because newly released police body cam footage shows her attacking the cop — cutting his face — before he shoots and kills her.
Georgetown women’s basketball mourns the tragic loss of Sydney Wilson (C’13). Forever a Hoya.#HoyaSaxa pic.twitter.com/vqwD8M6x4t
— Georgetown WBB (@GeorgetownWBB) September 20, 2024
@GeorgetownWBB
The tribute post has been on the Georgetown women’s basketball team’s X page since September 20. Sydney, who played for GU from 2009 to 2013, died Sept. 16 in the police shooting — and the video of the fatal altercation was just released Monday.
Now that it’s clear what led to her death, lots of folks online are calling on GU’s women’s hoops team to take down the post … and there’s a community note saying “Sydney Wilson was fatally shot after attempting to stab a police officer in Fairfax County, VA.”
The body cam footage shows Fairfax County police officer Peter Liu conducting what cops say was a welfare check on Wilson. The cop knocks on her apartment door and Wilson opens the door and slams it closed.
The officer knocks again, tells Wilson she’s “not in trouble,” and when she finally opens the door she raises a knife in her right hand and lunges toward Liu’s face.
Liu walks backward and Wilson follows him down the hallway, knife in hand … and he tells her to “please back up.” Wilson lunges at Liu with the knife, and then he opens fire.
Police say Liu shot Wilson 3 times in the upper body, and she was taken to a local hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
After the shooting, you can see officer Liu bleeding profusely from the knife wound, but police say his injury was not life-threatening.