Columbus police release details in fatal shooting of girl, 16
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Police on Wednesday shared new video of the moments before an officer fatally shot a Black 16-year-old after responding to a 911 call, as community members demanded to know why the officer used lethal force.
Body camera footage released by the police appears to shows the teenager, Ma’Khia Bryant, lunging at someone with a knife just before she is shot. Interim police chief Michael Woods said in an afternoon news conference that Officer Nicholas Reardon killed Bryant outside a residential home in the city’s southeast area on Tuesday afternoon.
City officials promised an independent probe by the state’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation and called for patience after the latest police shooting sparked protests and mistrust. But the footage did not quell concerns from some who said the officer could have defused the situation without opening fire. Unfolding just before former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder, the incident in Columbus sowed new tension over officers’ use of force in a city already grappling with fallout from police killings of two Black men.
Woods said the officer who fired on Bryant had been with the department since December 2019 and was working a one-officer car when he arrived on the scene.
The interim chief played new body camera footage from the scene.
The video footage shows Bryant lunging toward two people in a driveway before Reardon fired four shots. A knife is briefly visible in her hand and later in the driveway next to her as police perform CPR on her.
Hazel Bryant, who said she is Ma’Khia Bryant’s aunt, told The Washington Post in a brief interview Wednesday that “the body cam doesn’t show the truth of what occurred.” She said she didn’t personally witness the incident but arrived at the scene soon after. She described her niece as “so loving and kind.”
Others asked why police didn’t do more to try to de-escalate the situation.
“As soon as he got out of the car, he had the gun ready to shoot somebody,” Kiara Yakita, founder and president of the grass-roots group Black Liberation Movement Central Ohio, told The Post.