Korryn Gaines, a 23-year-old mother of two, is dead and her 5-year-old son is in the hospital after an hours-long standoff with police that ensued when Gaines refused to surrender to officers who presented an arrest warrant.

The incident occurred in Baltimore on Monday and has since garnered national attention and garnered thousands of conflicting opinions on social media.

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However according to a press release from Baltimore County Police Chief Jim Johnson and the county police spokeswoman, Elise Armacost, authorities claim Gaines verbally threatened and waved a 12-gauge shotgun at officers throughout the seven-hour standoff.

Authorities say issues first began around 9 a.m. on Aug. 1, when warrant-serving officers, dressed in uniforms that identified them as police, arrived at the home where Gaines lived with her boyfriend Kareem Courtney, 39.

Officers heard a male and female in the home, police say, but no one would answer the door. According to Johnson, after 40 minutes, police retrieved a key from the apartment management and opened the door a few inches as it was secured by a standard security chain. Johnson said that an investigation into whether or not the entry was legal is underway.

From what the officers could see through the cracked door, Gaines had a weapon and her son nearby, forcing them to back out of the apartment and take cover in the hallway where Johnson said they began speaking with her.

Around that same time, Courtney exited the home with a 1-year-old boy – whose relationship to Gaines is unclear – and was apprehended by police.

“Things were going well. Up and down. There were times that we thought this would come to a peaceful resolution,” Johnson said at a news conference. “There were other times when she was highly agitated. Throughout the afternoon she repeatedly pointed the weapon at our personnel.”

At some point in the standoff, although Johnson did not make clear when, hostage negotiators were called in to work with Gaines.

Armacost told reporters that officers “exercised extreme patience” throughout the ordeal and interacted with Gaines’ father to try to talk her down. Information obtained by the Baltimore Police Department also prompted hostage negotiators to contact mental health professionals, but Armacost would not reveal the specifics of that information due to patient protection laws.

Authorities claim that around 4 p.m. Gaines announced to officers that if they didn’t leave she was going to kill them. At that point, an officer discharged one round and Gaines returned the fire, authorities say.

Following her shots, police discharged another three rounds, killing Gaines.

After entering the apartment, police located Gaines’ body and found her son – who had been moving about the apartment throughout the standoff – with a gunshot wound to the leg.

Five-year-old Kodi Gaines, who officers do not believe was being used as a shield, was taken to Johns Hopkins Children’s Center where he remains in good condition, authorities say.

“We were there for basically six to seven hours trying to talk her out. Sometimes barricades go on for a very, very long time,” Armacost said, when asked why officers didn’t leave and regroup after Gaines’ verbal threat. “The goal is to stay as long as it takes to get someone to come out. However, when someone points a gun directly at an officer and threatens to shoot them it may not end well and that is the situation we had in this case.”

The warrants being served that resulted in Gaines’ death were for both Gaines and Courtney.

According to Johnson, an assault warrant taken out by Gaines was being served to Courtney because of a prior domestic assault incident. Gaines was being served a “failure to appear” bench warrant from a March 10 traffic stop, during which she was arrested for resisting arrest and disorderly conduct.

Kodi, 4-years-old at the time of the traffic stop, and an infant were in the car with Gaines when she was pulled over in March for not having a license plate, authorities say. Instead, she had a cardboard cutout in the place of a plate which read: “Any government official who compromises this pursuit to happiness and right to travel, will be held criminally responsible and fined, as this is a natural right to freedom.”

According to the incident report, Gaines threw the tickets she was given out of the window and told police they would have to “murder” her before she exited her car. A physical struggle ensued as police removed Gaines from the car. Medics were later called to the scene per Gaines’ request.

During their Tuesday news conference, Johnson and Armacost also discussed the presence of social media in Monday’s barricade, revealing that officers on scene reached out to Facebook, which Gaines was using to live-stream the event, and asked that they deactivate her account for the time being.

Johnson said that followers “were encouraging her not to comply with negotiators’ requests that surrender peacefully.”

In one video shared on her Instagram, which Gaines captioned, “My son is not a hostage. He wants to be here in his home with his mother,” Gaines asks her son what’s going on.

He answers that the police are outside and trying to kill them, as a hostage negotiator is heard calling to Gaines about her phone.

“The content on Gaines’ social media accounts has not been deleted,” a news release from Baltimore County Police read.

The department has also asked Facebook to preserve the contents of the account, as they would like to use the information as evidence in the investigation. Police have requested a search warrant to legally obtain the information.

As Armacost answered questions from reporters regarding the incident, many arose that revolved around policing and minorities – but Armacost said that the outcome had nothing to do with race.