Ohio police shoot black teenage girl dead

COLUMBUS: Police in Columbus, Ohio, yesterday fatally shot a black teenage girl they confronted as she lunged at two people with a knife, as seen in police video footage of the encounter, authorities said.

The incident came as the nation was focused on the guilty verdict a Minneapolis jury returned against a white former Minneapolis police officer who murdered George Floyd last year.

Releasing police bodycamera video of yesterday’s shooting hours later, interim Columbus police chief Michael Woods said officers involved there were responding to an emergency call from someone who reported an attempted stabbing at a home on the city’s southeast side.

Arriving police encountered a chaotic scene of several people where the teenager in question, brandishing a knife, charged towards one female who falls backwards, then lunged at a second female, the video showed.

The video shows the second victim stumbling backward as the youth raises the weapon as if about to stab her, and an officer opens fire.

Authorities described the youth who was fatally shot as a 15yearold girl. But family members have identified her as Makiyah Bryant, aged 16.

The police chief said the video was released to the public within hours of the incident in the interest of ‘‘transparency’’.

The officer who fired was not identified, but appeared to be white. The chief said he ‘‘would be taken off the street’’ pending an investigation.

About the time the video was made public, news coverage showed a growing crowd of protesters on city streets after dark, confronting a small line of police officers on bicycles.

Woods said the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) had opened an inquiry into the case. — Reuters