Janita Vance

Police say Janita Vance, 26, died after officers shot her and then she turned a gun on herself in the city’s Dutchtown neighborhood. Vance was connected to a shooting that happened at about 7:50 a.m. Friday just north of the city at a White Castle restaurant in Bellefontaine Neighbors, police said. Police said a masked person shot a cook inside the White Castle building before fleeing in a car. The cook, a woman, was expected to survive, St. Louis police Maj. Janice Bockstruck said. Bockstruck said the shooting was not a robbery. Officers said the suspect’s car was located by license plate readers in the city by the Real Time Crime Center at about 9 a.m. Officers attempted to stop it but the car sped off. Police found the car again in the 4100 block of California Avenue, but it sped off again, Bockstruck said during a media briefing. Other officers saw an armed woman walking away from the wanted car at West Iowa and North Gasconade avenues, Bockstruck said. “She was given verbal commands to which she did not comply,” police posted on X, formerly Twitter. “Two officers discharged their weapons at her, striking her.” Police said she then put her gun up to her chin and fired. McCoy said the medical examiner will determine if the woman died from the officers’ gunshots or her self-inflicted gunshot. No officers were injured, McCoy said. Minutes before Friday’s fatal shooting, police put out an “officer in need of aid” call a few blocks south at Meramec Street and California Avenue. Witnesses said police were chasing a car just before the shooting and the chase ended on the north end of Laclede Park. Vance lived in the 6400 block of Hobart Avenue in Pagedale. As of Feb. 3, 2025, the St. Louis Medical Examiner's Office had classified the manner of death as "homicide," but the police department said it had not yet completed its own investigation.