Protests, vigils in Columbus after latest police shooting

Demonstrations continue after girl, 16, is shot dead

COLUMBUS, Ohio — They gathered in a circle Wednesday night, probably 300 strong, standing on the broken, weedy patch of parking lot pavement and chanting the 16-year-old girl’s name.

Say her name. Ma’Khia Bryant. Say her name. Over and over again. A day after Bryant, a 16-year-old Black girl, was killed by a Columbus police officer, demonstrations spread throughout the city demanding justice and police accountability.

Among this group at the site of an old school building on S. Douglass Street on the Near East Side were two of Bryant’s three best friends.

Aaliyaha Tucker took the megaphone and and spoke in a voice so soft and gentle that she suddenly seemed much younger than her 16 years.

She had spoken to the Dispatch earlier about how Bryant was the one among their foursome of besties who taught the girls to believe in themselves and to be proud of who they are.

“Ma’Khia taught us how to be confident, how to love our bodies,” she said.

And then, when she spoke to the crowd of supporters who stood hanging on her every word and feeling the pain that seeped from her soul with every sentence, Tucker told them how her best friend had big plans.

“She wanted to become big on her own,” she said.

Tucker said the girls, now 10th-graders, met in ninth grade at Canal Winchester schools. They’ve been inseparable since, staying up on instant video messaging pretty much all night, every night, to hear Tucker’s aunt tell it.

To see and hear what happened Tuesday, Tucker said, was too much to take. Their other friend, 16-yearold Zion Davis, said that Ma’Khia seen in the video “wasn’t what she was portrayed to be the other day.”

Tucker agreed. “Ma’Khia has been a best friend to us since last year,” she told the crowd. “And those were the best years of our life.”

On Wednesday afternoon, police released the 911 calls and bodycam footage of what has become the latest in a series of high-profile shootings by police across the country.

Minutes before, it was announced that a jury had found former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin guilty on all three charges against him in the death of George Floyd. Bryant was fatally shot by Columbus police officer Nicholas Reardon, hired in December 2019, after police were called around 4:45 p.m. to the Southeast Side on the report of an attempted stabbing.

The vigil, part of several marches and memorials held Wednesday, was held just steps from the alley where Columbus police shot and killed 13-year-old Tyre King in September 2016 after police said he pulled what later turned out to be a BB gun as he ran from them.

During the vigil, local organizer Hana Abdur Rahim reminded the crowd that she and organizers want abolition of the police system.

Some of Bryant’s family were at the memorial, but did not speak.

Following the vigil, more than 150 protesters gathered outside the Columbus Division of Police headquarters for the second night in a row.