Mom of man killed by police seeking appeal in verdict

The mother of Henry Green, the 23-year-old fatally shot by two Columbus police officers in 2016, is asking the 6th District Court for an appeal in the April wrongful death verdict in favor of the officers.

Adrienne Hood, mother of Green, filed her request for an appeal on Friday, according to court documents, after a federal jury determined in late April that two white Columbus police officers did not use excessive force when they fatally shot Green, a Black man, in June 2016.

Hood, filed a federal lawsuit in the case in 2019, alleging wrongful death and excessive use of force.

The 2016 shooting began when the two officers, Zach Rosen and Jason Bare, were working undercover and said they spotted Green with a gun while he was at a street corner in South Linden. Green refused orders to drop his weapon, resulting in the shooting, court documents state.

Hood and other members of Green’s family contend that Green did not know who the undercover, plainclothes officers were and thought they were assailants coming for him. The shooting brought heavy criticism from the Black community over the special summer Columbus police operation, referred to by some as the “jump out boys.”

The federal jury rendered its verdict in favor of Rosen and Bare in U.S. District Court in Columbus after about two hours of deliberations.

In April, Hood’s attorney, Sean Walton, said he did not feel the verdict was “reflective of the eyewitness, scientific and circumstantial evidence” presented against the officers.

The trial was the second in the case — the court initially ruled in favor of the officers to dismiss the case, as well as other police personnel named in the suit who were later dismissed. However, a 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel turned the case back to the district court in 2020 as it related to the final shots fired at Green.

The officers have been cleared of wrongdoing by an internal administrative review, and a Franklin County grand jury did not indict them in the shooting.

COURTNEY HERGESHEIMER / COLUMBUS DISPATCH Adrienne Hood, whose son, 23-year-old Henry Green, was shot seven times by Columbus police officers in June 2016, speaks to a crowd of more than 1,000 people at the Ohio Statehouse during a march on June 12, 2020. She is appealing a ruling in favor of police in her federal wrongful death lawsuit.