New York: Police have alleged that a standoff in Randallstown, Maryland, on Monday in which a 23-year-old woman with a shotgun was killed came after she had been encouraged by her online followers to defy their orders.

During the standoff, which lasted several hours, videos from inside the apartment were posted to the Instagram account of the woman, Korryn Gaines,  whose five-year-old son was also in the home, according to the Baltimore County Police Department.

Police said Gaines had repeatedly pointed her shotgun at officers, at least once while her son was in her arms. At one point, she said she would kill the officers if they did not leave, police said. An officer fired once at Gaines, and she fired back, police said. Then officers fired three shots, killing Gaines. Her son also suffered injuries, though they are not considered life-threatening.

Critics of the police have welcomed social media - especially live video - as a way to document interactions with officers, hoping it would lead to better police behaviour or eliminate conflicting stories. In July, a Facebook video broadcast by the girlfriend of Philando Castile after an officer shot him during a traffic stop in Minnesota drew wide attention.

But in the case of Gaines, according to police, it may have escalated the encounter.

While the standoff continued, police in Baltimore County submitted a request to Facebook - which owns Instagram - to deactivate but not delete her accounts. Facebook cooperated, temporarily making her Facebook and Instagram posts inaccessible.

"It's key for these trained negotiators to be able to interact with the subject without distraction, without interference from the outside," said Elise Armacost, a Baltimore County police spokeswoman.

The episode highlights Facebook's increasingly complicated role in documenting violence, and in some cases, its active place in the middle of it.

Before the shots were fired, the Instagram posts caught the police's attention. In one of the videos, Gaines asked her son: "What's happening outside right now? Who's outside?"

"The police," the boy said.

"And what are they trying to do?" she asked.

"They trying to kill us," he said.

Police said some of the comments people left on the posts encouraged her to defy orders to surrender peacefully.

Facebook has been forced to wrestle with how it handles violent content, especially because several shootings have been captured using Facebook's live video after the feature rolled out to all users in April.

Facebook moderators decide what violent content can remain, though the company will take it down if it appears to glorify violence. Though the videos on Gaines' account were not live, one of them was taken down for violating Facebook's community standards related to threats of physical harm, the company said.

Law enforcement officials can submit emergency requests to Facebook when someone's safety is at risk. Moderators at Facebook, including members of its legal team, review those requests, the company said.

In the last half of 2015 - the most recent figures made available - Facebook received 855 requests from the US government for "emergency disclosures",  when "disclosure without delay is required due to a risk of serious physical harm or death to any person". The company provided data in 73.45 per cent of the cases.

Police were trying to serve Gaines with an arrest warrant after she failed to appear in court for charges related to a traffic stop in March, police said. After she refused to allow the police to enter, an officer obtained a key; Gaines was on the floor holding a shotgun and her son, police said. They called for backup and the standoff began.

At a news conference on Tuesday, the police chief, James Johnson, said officers showed restraint throughout the standoff despite officers being in danger.

"The entire time, throughout the afternoon, she would repeatedly point the weapon at our personnel, and they maintained firearms discipline throughout," he said.

New York Times