Jayland Walker shooting: officers won’t face charges in death of Black motorist

Eight police officers who fired dozens of rounds at Jayland Walker, a 25-yearold Black man, following a car and foot chase will not face criminal charges in his death because a grand jury declined to indict them, Ohio’s attorney general announced Monday.

Walker’s death last June sparked protests in Akron after police released body camera footage showing him dying in a hail of gunfire. Police said he had refused to stop when they tried to pull him over for minor equipment and traffic violations, though they haven’t specified further. Police say Walker fired a shot from his car 40 seconds into the pursuit.

Officers chased the car on a freeway and city streets until Walker bailed from the still-moving vehicle, ignored officers’ commands and ran into a parking lot where he was killed while wearing a ski mask, body cam video showed. Authorities said he represented a “deadly threat”. A handgun, a loaded magazine and a wedding ring were found on the driver’s seat of his car.

Walker took at least one shot from his vehicle at police and then after jumping out of his car he ignored commands to stop and show his hands, Dave Yost, the attorney general, said. “There is no doubt he did in fact shoot at police officers,” Yost said.

Walker reached for his waistband as officers were chasing and raised his hand, Yost said. The officers, not knowing he left his gun in the car, believed he was firing again at them, Yost said.

Yost said it is critical to remember that Walker had fired at police, and that he “shot first”.

Walker’s family called it a brutal and senseless shooting of a man who was unarmed at the time and whose fiancee recently died. Police union officials said the officers thought there was an immediate threat of serious harm and that their actions were in line with their training and protocols.

The blurry body camera footage did not clearly show what authorities say was a threatening gesture Walker made before he was shot. Police chased him for about 10 seconds before officers fired from multiple directions, a burst of shots that lasted six or seven seconds.

The eight officers, whose names have been withheld from the public, initially were placed on leave, but they returned to administrative duties three and a half months after the shooting.

A county medical examiner said Walker was shot at least 40 times. The autopsy also said no illegal drugs or alcohol were detected in his body.

City leaders have been meeting with community leaders, church groups, activists and business owners ahead of the grand jury meeting while also preparing for potential protests.

Walker’s death received widespread attention from activists, including from the family of the Rev Martin Luther King Jr. The NAACP and an attorney for Walker’s family called on the justice department to open a federal civil rights investigation.

President Joe Biden responded during a trip to Ohio last summer by saying the DoJ was monitoring the case.

Separately, another grand jury has refused to indict a northern Virginia former police officer after he fatally shot an unarmed shoplifting suspect outside a busy shopping mall in February.

Authorities presented the case to a grand jury for an indictment against Wesley Shifflett, who shot and killed Timothy McCree Johnson outside Tysons Corner Center on 22 February.

The shooting occurred after Shifflett and another Fairfax county police officer chased Johnson on foot from the mall after receiving a report from security guards that Johnson had stolen sunglasses from a Nordstrom department store.

Dimly lit body camera video shows the chase and the shooting. The officer is heard saying “Get on the ground” and later saying “stop reaching” as shots are fired. After the shooting, Shifflett tells another officer that he saw Johnson “continually reaching in his waistband”.

A search of the grounds after the shooting turned up no weapons.

Shifflett was fired last month for what Fairfax county police chief Kevin Davis called “a failure to live up to the expectations of our agency, in particular use of force policies”.

A lawyer for Johnson’s family likened the shooting to an execution. Johnson’s mother, Melissa Johnson, said officers shot her son when all they knew at the time was “that he was Black and male and had allegedly triggered an alarm from a store for some sunglasses”.