Ohio mayor decries fatal shooting of Black man
COLUMBUS, Ohio – An Ohio police officer shot and killed an unarmed Black man while responding to a nonemergency call early Tuesday in the state’s largest city, and hours later a furious Mayor Andrew J. Ginther ordered the police chief to take the officer’s badge and gun.
“The community is exhausted,”
Ginther said.
The officers involved in the incident did not turn on their body cameras until immediately after the shooting, but it was recorded because the camera captures 60 seconds of footage before it is turned on. It also appears there was a delay in rendering aid to the man, according to the city’s office of public safety.
The shooting comes less than three weeks after a Franklin County sheriff’s deputy shot Casey Goodson Jr., a 23year-old Black man, in the Northland area of Columbus. That shooting has prompted protests and demands for justice.
Police spokesman Sgt. James Fuqua said officers were dispatched at 1:37 a.m. to a nonemergency call on the city’s Northwest Side for a disturbance involving an SUV running on and off for an extended time. Fuqua said the complaint came from a neighbor.
At a news conference, Ginther and city Department of Public Safety officials revealed more details about the
Agents from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation work the scene of a fatal shooting in Columbus Tuesday.
shooting.
When officers arrived on the scene, they found a home’s garage door open and a man inside.
The man, who was visiting someone at the home, walked toward officers with a cellphone in his left hand and his right hand not visible, according to a review by city officials of one of the responding officer’s body-worn camera footage.
One officer fired his weapon, striking the 47-year-old Black man, who later died at OhioHealth Riverside Methodist
Hospital. A weapon was not recovered at the scene.
The man’s name has not been released, pending family notification. Columbus police officers involved in shootings are not identified for at least 24 hours after the shooting, per Division of Police policy.
“The body-worn camera footage also documents a delay in rendering of firstaid to the man,” according to a city Department of Public Safety release.
The officer involved in the shooting has been placed on administrative leave. He will not return to work until he has been cleared by an independent psychologist, according to the release.
Ginther said he took the additional step of asking Police Chief Tom Quinlan to relieve the officer of duty – the equivalent of suspension – based on what he said he saw on the footage.
Quinlan has ordered the officer relieved of duty, according to the city. This strips the officer of all police powers pending the outcome of the criminal and internal investigation. The officer will be paid during this time, per union contract.
Ginther said the fact that neither responding officer turned on his body camera until after the shooting “disturbed him greatly.”
“It is unacceptable to me and the community that officers did not turn on their cameras,” he said.