Killing by police justified, review finds
Two Columbus police officers acted within policy when they shot and killed 23-year-old Henry Green in June 2016 South Linden, according to a police review released Friday.
Officer Jason Bare and former Officer Zachary Rosen, who were working an assignment in plainclothes, were cleared of any wrongdoing by the police division in a report on the shooting written by Deputy Chief Thomas Quinlan.
Bare fired seven times and Rosen fired 15 times, according to police.
A Franklin County grand jury voted not to indict the officers in March 2017.
The officers were patrolling the neighborhood in an unmarked SUV when they saw Green and a friend walking near Duxberry Avenue and Ontario Street, Quinlan reported.
Rosen said Green blocked the SUV’s path and he swerved to avoid him. When Rosen saw in his side mirror that Green was aiming a gun toward the vehicle, he called for backup and circled back around. Rosen said Green again was blocking the SUV’s path, so he jumped out and identified himself as a police officer. Rosen ordered Green to drop his gun, but police said Green instead fired.
Quinlan’s report, though, said Green likely didn’t account for Bare, who was concealed behind privacy glass in the back seat of the SUV. Bare flanked Green as he fired. If not for Bare, Rosen likely would have been shot and “suffered a catastrophic injury,” according to the report.
Green fired his gun six times, including several shots as he fell to the ground, as officers returned fire, according to the report. Green was shot seven times.
“It’s one of the most clearcut shootings I’ve ever seen, so I’m not surprised at all that it will be cleared as a good shooting,” said Jason Pappas, president of Fraternal Order of Police Capital City Lodge No. 9.
There were conflicting witness statements about who fired first.
Green’s mother, Adrienne Hood, has filed a civil rights and wrongful-death lawsuit in federal court in Columbus. Sean Walton, an attorney who is representing Green’s family, said in the lawsuit that the officers were working as “jumpout boys” targeting citizens “for unreasonable encounters in order to seek out criminal activity.” That case is still pending.
“We are not surprised at the decision the Columbus Division of Police has come to regarding the actions of their officers,” Walton told The Dispatch. “We fully expected this decision based on their pattern and practice of not holding officers accountable for the unreasonable use of deadly force.”
The lawsuit quotes witnesses who said Rosen and Bare did not identify themselves as police officers. But Christian Rutledge, who was with Green at the time, told investigators that “he could tell the individual driving the white SUV was a police officer when the SUV passed him and Mr. Green,” according to Quinlan’s report.
“No white boys have a gun like that, dress like that, or have a car like that,” Rutledge told investigators, according to the report.
At last check, Bare still patrols South Linden. Rosen was fired by Public Safety Director Ned Pettus due to an April 2017 incident when he used his left foot to stomp once on the head of a suspect accused of assaulting an officer and threatening people inside a home with a gun.
At the time, suspect Demarko Anderson was lying on his stomach on the entrance of a concrete driveway, in handcuffed custody of the officer he had assaulted. Anderson’s head struck the pavement after the single stomp. The incident was captured on a cellphone video.
Rosen appealed his termination with the aid of the police union. An arbitrator is expected to make a binding decision by next month.
The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation assisted the Columbus Division of Police investigation into the shooting.