Union: deputy ‘feared for life’
Sheriff withholds identity of officer in fatal shooting.
After a number COLUMBUS — of online threats were made toward a Franklin County sheriff ’s deputy who fatally shot a 16-year-old male defendant in juvenile court on Wednesday, officials said Thursday they have decided to withhold his identity.
“I’m not withholding it for any other reason,” said Chief Deputy Rick Minerd, who oversees investigations.
The courthouse deputy suffered a black eye, bruises and abrasions after a scuffle Wednesday with Joseph E. Haynes and his family members in a hallway on the fifth floor of the Franklin County Courthouse.
The deputy, who was knocked to the ground, drew his service weapon during the fight just outside of Juvenile Courtroom 56 and fired a shot, wounding Haynes in the abdomen at 12:40 p.m. Haynes was pronounced dead less than an hour later at OhioHealth Grant Medical Center.
The deputy was not in the courtroom during the teen’s hearing Wednesday on violating probation with two delinquency counts of aggravated menacing for allegedly pointing a handgun and threatening to shoot two people this past Nov. 14, Keith Ferrell, executive vice president of Fraternal Order of Police Capital City Lodge No. 9, said at a news conference Thursday.
County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien said one of the things that had upset Haynes was the magistrate’s decision that he had to continue to wear an electronic monitoring device until his next court date. The scuffle broke out in a hallway after the hearing.
“This was a fight for (the deputy’s) life at some point,” Ferrell told reporters.
The deputy was treated at OhioHealth Riverside Methodist Hospital and released Wednesday evening, Ferrell said.
Haynes’ grandmother has told The Dispatch she didn’t know why the deputy didn’t use a Taser on her lanky, 6-foot grandson. She acknowledged that her grandson grabbed the deputy’s shoulder but noted he was not armed.
Ferrell said people who are unarmed can take an officer’s weapon during an altercation and use it against him.
He said that during Wednesday’s fight someone reached for the deputy’s service weapon, stun gun or both.
“That is not acceptable. We will not tolerate it. And it’s not going to happen,” Ferrell said. “We will not allow, as officers in this city, for things to escalate to the point where multiple people are hurt or injured.”
Before the shooting, deputies and court personnel had expressed concerns about staffing levels.
Depending on the day, a deputy may be assigned to a couple floors, union officials said.
“We need to make some changes to get appropriate staffing,” Ferrell said.
Erin Davies, executive director of the Juvenile Justice Coalition, a statewide advocacy organization that works with youth in the juvenile court system, cautioned against augmenting security. She noted that county courthouses already have metal detectors and checks for anyone entering the buildings.
“Any calls for increased building security for youth and families are misplaced,” she said. “Many of the young people who come through the juvenile court system have experienced trauma, including witnessing or directly experiencing violence in their neighborhoods, homes and schools.”
She said she hopes the sheriff ’s office will work to make sure there are “developmentally appropriate protocols in place” that “do not rely on use of force.”
Details about escalating use of force leading to Wednesday’s shooting and exactly what courthouse video cameras captured were not available Thursday as the investigation continues.
In the mornings, the fifth floor is sometimes “wallto-wall people” in the hallway before cases start at 9 a.m. Haynes’s defense attorney, Jennifer Brisco, said her client’s hearing ended during the lunch hour, so the crowd had thinned out when the shooting occurred on Wednesday.
Juvenile court’s fifth floor, which was evacuated after the shooting, reopened for cases Thursday morning.