A judge ordered that Mia K. Hill, also known as Taleah Michelle Everett, stay in jail without bond for the next five days for charges stemming from an incident yesterday when she rammed into cruisers and nearly ran over several people near the Capitol. Police officers shot at her vehicle and the area was briefly placed under lockdown but no injuries were reported.
U.S. Capitol Police communications director Eva Malecki described Hill as “an erratic and aggressive driver” yesterday at a press conference. Hill’s aunt told NBC 4 that she had been “diagnosed with bipolar depression and had psychotic behavior.”
The 20 year old made her first appearance today before Judge Robin M. Meriweather in the U.S. District Court for D.C.
According to an affidavit, a U.S. Capitol Police officer spotted Hill driving through a red traffic signal, nearly hitting two pedestrians, at the intersection of 3rd and D Streets SW around 9:23 a.m on Wednesday. The officer waved his arms for Hill to stop, but she kept driving, causing the officer to move out of the way. She “displayed her middle finger upright” as she drove by, according affidavit.
Hill abruptly changed lanes but eventually had to slow down because of traffic, according to the document. At this point, three officers pulled their police cruisers alongside Hill and told her to get out of her car, but she instead made a U-turn, striking a police cruiser and gray Toyota and nearly hitting an officer on foot. She then fled the crash scene.
After what’s described in the affidavit as more reckless driving, police raised barricades embedded in Independence Avenue SW to stop all eastbound and westbound traffic, including Hill’s four-door Chevrolet Cruze. But Hill still tried to drive away, hitting another cruiser and almost running over officers in the process.
Then, two officers “in fear of their own immediate safety, as well as the immediate safety of all [U.S. Capitol Police officers] on scene and the immediate safety of passersby, discharged their firearms at Hill’s vehicle,” the document says.
Then one officer was able to break Hill’s driver door window allowing another officer to reach inside and remove Hill out of the car. There were no reported injuries due to the gunfire. However, Hill “spat [five] multiple times at multiple uniformed [officers],” according to the affidavit. And at some point, she also yelled “something to the effect of: f*** you, I was up here yesterday trying to run you motherf*****s over!”
Police arrested Hill and charged her with four federal counts of assaulting, resisting or impeding a federal police officer with a dangerous weapon, and one federal count of destruction of property of the U.S., according to a release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C. She was also charged with with fleeing a law enforcement officer, which is a D.C. offense.
Hill’s aunt also told NBC4 that she recently filed a petition at a Prince George’s County courthouse to get her niece an emergency health evaluation, but a judge denied the request. “We know that she needs help. Unfortunately the judge didn’t see that, and this is the result of her not getting the care that we know she desperately needed,” she said.
Hill’s preliminary hearing is set for Tuesday at 1:30 p.m.
