COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – Columbus police shot dead a teenage girl who swung a knife at two other people Tuesday, according to camera footage that fired the shots minutes before the verdict in George Floyd’s murder has been read.
Columbus Police Department officials showed a portion of the footage Tuesday night hours after the shooting took place in a neighborhood on the east side of the city. The decision to release the video quickly was a departure from the protocol, as power is scrutinized by the public following a series of recent high-profile police killings that led to clashes.
The ten-second clip begins with the officer climbing out of a home to which police were sent after someone called 911 and said they were physically threatened, interim police chief Michael Woods told the news conference. The officer took a few steps in the direction of a group of people in the driveway when the girl, who was black, swung wildly with a knife at another girl or woman who was falling backwards. The officer shouted several times to come down.
The girl with the knife then loads on another girl or woman pinned to a car.
From a few feet, with people on either side of him, the officer fired four shots, and the teenager sank to the ground. On the sidewalk next to her lay a blade with black handles similar to a kitchen knife or steak knife.
A man immediately yells at the officer, ‘You don’t have to shoot her! She’s just a kid, man! ‘
The officer replied, ‘She had a knife. She just went to her. ‘
The race of the officer was not clear.
Police took the girl to a hospital where she was pronounced dead. It remains unclear if anyone else was injured.
Police did not identify the girl or her age Tuesday. One family member said she was 15, while another said she was 16.
The shooting took place minutes before the verdict on the murder of George Floyd. Protesters who gathered peacefully after the verdict to call for police reform and accountability quickly shifted their attention to the murder of the girl. About 100 crowds could be heard chanting outside the police headquarters as city officials expressed their condolences to the family and acknowledged the scarcity of showing their body disk material so shortly after a police shooting.
Woods said the state law allows police to use lethal force to protect themselves or others, and investigators will determine if this shooting was such a case.
Andrew Ginther, mayor of Columbus, mourns the loss of the young victim, but defends the use of the officer with deadly force.
“We know based on this footage, the officer acted to protect another young girl in our community,” he told reporters.
Meanwhile, hundreds of protesters outside the information session pushed in front of the barriers outside police headquarters and approached officers while city officials showed the video from the cameras. Many chanted, “Say her name!” While others indicated the age of the victim by shouting, “She was just a child!” Officers with bicycles pushed back protesters and threatened to apply pepper spray to the crowd.
The shooting happened about 25 minutes before a judge read out the verdict in which former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder. and manslaughter in the murder of Floyd. It also took place less than 8km from the funeral for Andre Hill, who was killed in December by another police officer in Columbus, was detained earlier this year. The officer in Hill’s case, Adam Coy, a 19-year veteran of the force, is now being executed for murder, with the next trial scheduled for April 28.
Less than three weeks before Hill was assassinated, 23-year-old Casey Goodson Jr. in Columbus. The case remains under federal investigation.
Last week, Columbus police shot dead a man who was in a hospital emergency room with a gun up. Officials are continuing their investigation into the shooting.
Kimberly Shepherd, 50, who has lived in the neighborhood where Tuesday’s shooting took place for 17 years, said she knew the teenage victim.
“The environment has certainly undergone the changes, but nothing like it,” Shepherd said of the shooting. “It’s the worst thing that ever happened here, and unfortunately it’s been done by the police.”
Shepherd and her neighbor Jayme Jones, 51, celebrated Chauvin’s guilty verdict. But things changed quickly, she said.
“We were happy with the verdict. But you could not even enjoy it, “said Shepherd. “Because you get a call once that he was guilty, I get the next call that it’s happening in my area.”
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Farnoush Amiri is a corps member of the Associated Press / Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a non-profit national service program that puts journalists in local newsrooms to cover hidden issues.
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Kryska reported from Hoboken, New Jersey.