Ohio police officer fired for fatal shooting on Andre Hill

A Columbus police officer has been fired the fatal shooting of a black man in a case that sparked national outrage, the city’s director of public safety announced Monday. The decision to fire Adam Coy, who has been identified by authorities as the officer who shot dead 47-year-old Andre Hill last week, comes after city police called the shooting “horrific” and Coy’s termination recommended.

“On Monday morning, I held a disciplinary hearing for Columbus Police Officer Adam Coy. I uphold Chief Quinlan’s recommendation to terminate Mr. Coy,” said Ned Pettus Jr., director of public safety in Columbus, saying, ” ‘The actions of Adam Coy do not meet the oath of a Columbus police officer, nor do we meet the standards that we and the community demand of our officers.’

Authorities said the shooting happened after a neighbor reported that a person turned on and off the car of a sports utility vehicle around 1:30 p.m. On camera footage from the scene, Coy points out his vehicle and approaches Hill, who was standing in a garage. When Hill walks up to the officer holding his cell phone, Coy shoots down his weapon. Hill immediately falls to the ground when Coy orders him to show his hands.

The video does not show how Coy provides CPR or other medical care. Hill later died of his injuries. A preliminary autopsy report released Monday found that Hill’s death was a homicide and that he succumbed to multiple gunshot wounds.

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Andre Hill is shown in an image provided by his family’s lawyer

Benjamin Crump


The mayor of the city said the day after the shooting that Hill was an expected guest in the residence and was not an intruder. The mayor also said that Coy first turned on his body camera after the shooting – but he said a 60-second automatic ‘look back’ captured the incident without sound.

Two days after the shooting, Columbus Police Chief Thomas Quinlan announced that he was taking action to fire Coy by recommending his termination to Pettus. Quinlan said that after investigating Coy’s use of lethal force, his failure to activate his body camera and his failure to provide assistance to Hill, he bypassed the typical step of circumventing Coy’s trial.

“I have seen everything I need to see to conclude that Officer Coy should be terminated immediately,” he wrote in a public statement announcing his recommendation.

In his letter to Pettus, Quinlan said that Coy “had no immediate reason to believe that criminal activity was going on and that he certainly did not tend to believe that Hill would pose a threat to officers, and added that Coy “violated his right to occupy his position as incumbent. a police officer. ”

Civil rights lawyer Benjamin Crump, who represents Hill’s family, has called for Coy to be arrested. He called the shooting the ‘correct decision’ in a statement issued Monday, stressing the need to redefine a relationship between police and color communities in which it does not become fatal for a black person with a cell phone to encounter law enforcement not. officer. ‘

The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation is investigating the shooting. Quinlan also noted that additional officers involved in the incident would be investigated because they may not have activated their body cameras or to provide Hill.

Quinlan announced the shooting and wrote in a statement: “This is what liability looks like.” He added that Coy “will now have to answer to state investigators for the death of Andre Hill.”

The shooting comes because the city was startled by police just a few weeks earlier by another fatal shooting of a black man. On December 4, a deputy of the sheriff was killed Casey Goodson, 23 on his grandmother’s doorstep. The shooting, which was not captured on camera, is being investigated by Columbus police, the Department of Justice and the FBI.

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