Ohio slay cop ID’d
Put on leave in shoot of Black girl in knife fracas
The Ohio police officer who fatally shot a 16-year-old Black girl on Tuesday has been identified — with a city official calling the incident a “horrendous tragedy” but urging the public to be patient as the investigation continues.
Officer Nicholas Reardon, one of several cops who responded to the scene of an altercation involving a group of people, was named Wednesday as the one who killed Ma’khia Bryant, the teen seen on police body camera footage apparently threatening another woman or girl with a knife. Reardon, who is white, has been a Columbus police officer since December 2019 and is being placed on administrative leave, officials said at a news conference.
The shooting, which happened shortly before a jury convicted ex-cop Derek Chauvin in the 2020 murder of George Floyd, sparked outrage across the community that another person of color was killed by a cop. At least 200 protesters gathered outside the city’s police headquarters hours later to call for justice and transparency in the case.
Police also released audio of two 911 calls regarding an attempted stabbing that prompted the deadly encounter as well as new body cam footage from officers at the scene.
In the first call, a woman or girl was heard asking police to come to the house and saying someone was trying to stab people there. Authorities have not confirmed the caller’s identity, but Ma’khia’s mother told reporters it was her daughter who called asking for help during an attack.
“Grandma! Grandma!” someone was heard shouting in the background while others screamed.
The circumstances leading up to the shooting remain under investigation and it’s still unclear who exactly was involved and who provoked the violent dispute, cops said. Videos appear to show Ma’khia with a knife in her hand and lunging toward two women in a residential driveway.
The officer who shot her, now identified as Reardon, is heard shouting, “Get down! Get down!” before he opens fire.
A video played in slow motion during Wednesday’s news conference shows the teen moving her knife toward another girl before being struck by the officer’s gunfire and falling to the ground.
The body cam footage then shows officers performing CPR on Ma’khia as she lay on the ground.
“Come on, Ma’khia, stay with us,” one of them repeatedly says.
The girl was pronounced dead at a hospital a short time later. She was living in a foster home not far from the shooting site, but her mother said she was hoping to live with Ma’khia again in the near future.
Columbus Safety Director Ned Pettus asked that the public “not rush to judgment” about the circumstances of the shooting as a “fully independent investigation” was just beginning.
“I understand the outrage and emotion around this incident,” he told reporters Wednesday. “A teenage girl is dead, and she’s dead at the hands of a police officer. Under any circumstances that is a horrendous tragedy, but the video shows that there’s more to this.
“We have to ask ourselves, what information did the officer have? What did he see? How much time did he have to assess the situation? And what would have happened if he had taken no action at all?” Pettus said.
Mayor Andrew Ginther also pleaded for patience and said the whole community has work to do.
“We don’t yet have all the facts, but we do know that a 16-year-old girl, a child in this community, tragically died last night,” he said. “Bottom line, did Ma’khia Bryant need to die yesterday? How did we get here? This is a failure of our community. Some are guilty, but all of us are responsible.”