Man killed by police had BB gun
A Columbus COLUMBUS — police officer shot and killed a man at Mount Carmel St. Ann’s hospital Thursday afternoon, after the man pulled what appeared to be a handgun, police said.
The weapon turned out to be a BB gun. He had ignored repeated orders to drop the gun before he was shot, police said.
The man, whose name police hadn’t yet released Thursday night, was pronounced dead just before 2 p.m.
Police spokesman Sgt. Rich Weiner gave this account of what happened:
About 1 p.m., Westerville medics asked Columbus police to assist them as they picked up and delivered a patient experiencing psychological issues to the hospital from a residence in the 6700 block of Garden Terrace Road on the Northeast Side. Medics already had the patient, but police were asked to follow them to the hospital.
After arriving at St. Ann’s in Westerville, the man got out of the squad carrying two bags and walked toward the entrance. When he saw the officers, he put down the bags, reached into one, took out a box and removed a gun.
Witnesses confirmed that officers repeatedly told the man to drop the gun and get on the ground, but he did not comply. An officer fired at the man multiple times, striking him. There were at least six witnesses to the confrontation.
It was unclear whether the man was pointing the gun in the officers’ direction at the time.
He was rushed into the hospital’s emergency room, where he was pronounced dead. No one else was injured.
Weiner said the man was voluntarily going to the hospital and that might have been why his bags weren’t checked.
The department has not released the officer’s name.
It was the seventh police-involved shooting this year.
Realistic-looking BB guns and toy guns are “something we have been dealing with for a long time,” Weiner said.
Officers in a situation like the one on Thursday don’t have time to discern whether a gun is real, he said.
On Sept. 14, Tyre King, a 13-year-old suspect in a $10 robbery, was fatally shot by Columbus police Officer Bryan Mason after King pulled a BB gun from his waistband as he ran from police in the Olde Towne East neighborhood. The gun, found at the scene, was designed to look like a real firearm and equipped with a laser sight.
Mason, who had been involved in three earlier shootings, one of them fatal, has been placed on desk duty by Police Chief Kim Jacobs, who said he is unlikely to return to patrol duties.
A judge on CLEVELAND — Thursday sentenced a 28-year-old Cleveland man to 14 years in prison for a violent mid-day robbery and pistol-whipping near an elementary school that was captured on a cellphone video.
Roderick Rogers, and a man who authorities have yet to identify, targeted the victim after watching him buy LeBron James sneakers at the Tower City Center Foot Locker on May 25, 2015. They followed him on an RTA bus to Cleveland’s East Side and attacked him with a pistol, Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Kelly Needham told O’Donnell Thursday.
Rogers, who was convicted in February of aggravated robbery, felonious assault, kidnapping and weapons charges, apologized to Cuyahoga County Judge John P. O’Donnell for the attack.
“I made a bad decision,” Rogers said, “but I’m really not a bad person.”
O’Donnell praised the courage of the witness to come to police with the video, which was pivotal in identifying Rogers.
Rogers and the other man saw the victim, who had just cashed his paycheck, pull out a wad of cash and pay for the shoes. They followed him on an RTA bus until he got off at East 93rd Street and Union Avenue. Rogers and the other man followed, and attacked him on the street at the busy intersection.
The video shows cars driving by and women standing feet away as Rogers and the unidentified man punched, kicked and wrestled with the victim. Rogers bodyslammed the victim to the ground, then the other attacker pulled a pistol and smacked it against the victim’s head as they rifled through his pockets.
The gunman then fired a shot toward the victim’s legs.
The unidentified attacker finally ripped the wad of money out of the man’s back pocket. The unidentified attacker fired another shot at the victim as he and Rogers made their escape.
The gunshots forced a nearby charter elementary school into lockdown, Needham said.
Rogers took the Foot Locker bag. But the victim had put his new shoes on and his old shoes in the box, so Rogers ditched the shoes about a block from the attack, Needham said.
Rogers was on parole for a burglary conviction at the time of the attack. He fled to Michigan, Needham said. More than a year before police arrested him and charged him in the attack.
Rogers rejected plea deals that would have put him in prison for between 6 and 10 years, and instead took his case to trial.