Three Years Later: Misty Holt-Singh's Mother Speaks Out For The First Time
STOCKTON (CBS13) - On the third anniversary of the Stockton Bank of the West robbery, hostage standoff, and deadly shootout, the mother of hostage victim Misty Holt-Singh is speaking out for the first time.
CBS13's Steve Large sat down with Holt-Singh's grieving mother, Karen Farmer, for an emotional interview, in which she revealed she's seeking an apology from Stockton police.
"What do you want to say today, that you have been holding in for three years?" CBS13's Steve Large asked. "Well, I would like the police department to take responsibility of their part in my daughter's death," Farmer said.
Wearing a T-shirt reading "Justice for Misty Holt-Singh" that she made for the interview, Farmer's voice cracked with emotion as she recalled the day her daughter died.
"This is the first time I've ever really spoke to anybody," Farmer said. "I've kept everything pretty much to myself."
"What does justice look like?" Large asked Farmer.
"I want them (the Stockton Police Department) to take responsibility of it," Farmer said. "Dragging it out, all it does is keep the family hurting."
Inside her home, memories of her daughter are everywhere. Farmer says she is still waiting to hear personally from Stockton's police department with some kind of apology.
"Something," Farmer said. "And I've had nothing."
The wrongful death case filed by Misty's family against Stockton police has not gone to trial. In the criminal case, the two surviving bank robbers were convicted and sentenced earlier this year.
"I don't say the bank robbers weren't at fault, they were at fault 100 percent," Farmer said. "But then there's another part of all of this that the police department is responsible for."
An independent Police Foundation report concluded the shootout between bank robbers and officers was chaotic. It found that Holt-Singh died when more than 30 officers fired 600 shots at the getaway car. Ten bullets hit her -- all fired by police.
"The ones that killed my daughter, yeah, I think they should be terminated," Holt-Singh said.
The Stockton Police Department issued a statement following this interview, reading in part:
"There has not been a single day in the past three years that we have not thought about Misty Holt-Singh, about the pain felt by her family and loved ones, and about the tragic day that took Misty from her family and scarred our community."
For mom Karen Farmer, they are words that fall short of what she is seeking: justice for Misty Holt-Singh.
"Today is the third anniversary. Does it make it any more painful today than other days," Large asked? "No. Every day is painful," Farmer said.