OFFICIALS URGE CALM AS DETAILS OF OHIO SHOOTING EMERGE
Videos show girl with knife apparently lunging at someone
Law enforcement authorities Wednesday released 911 calls and new body-camera videos showing the chaotic moments surrounding the killing of a Black 16-year-old girl who was fatally shot by a Columbus police officer responding to a call about a disturbance.
Michael Woods, the interim chief of the Columbus Division of Police, identified the officer who shot the girl, Ma’Khia Bryant, as Nicholas Reardon, and said he had been on the force since December 2019. Reardon, who is White, has been placed on administrative leave as the shooting is investigated.
Bryant was killed less than an hour before a jury in Minneapolis handed down its guilty verdict against Derek Chauvin in the murder of George Floyd, and her death outside her foster home on a suburban block in southeastern Columbus quickly set off new waves of anger and protests over police killings.
As the White House on Wednesday described Bryant’s death as “tragic,” law enforcement authorities in Columbus pleaded for patience from the community as they released 911 calls and new body-camera videos showing the frenzied moments surrounding her shooting.
“A teenage girl is dead, and she’s dead at the hands of a police officer. Under any circumstance, that is a horrendous tragedy,” Ned Pettus Jr., the public safety director for the city of Columbus, said during a news conference Wednesday. “But the video shows there is more to this. It requires us to pause, take a close look at the sequence of events, and though it’s not easy, wait for the facts as is determined by an independent investigation.”
The first 911 call that brought the police to the house came at 4:32 p.m. Tuesday. It is a cacophony of screaming. The caller, who sounds like a younger woman, says that someone was “trying to stab us” and had “put hands” on the caller’s grandmother. The dispatcher asks again and again whether the caller has seen any weapons.
Officers were dispatched to the home on Legion Lane at 4:35 p.m. Tuesday and arrived at 4:44, according to the Columbus police.
As Reardon got out of his vehicle, he encountered seven people outside a two-story brick home and asked, “What’s going on?” Yelling could be heard in the background.
An unidentified girl appeared to fall to the grass after being attacked by Bryant and then kicked by an unidentified man. The video footage then showed Bryant, who was holding a knife, appearing to lunge toward a person dressed in pink who was pinned against a car parked in the driveway.
“Hey! Hey!” Reardon said as he pulled his gun. “Get down! Get down!”
He fired four quick shots, and Bryant dropped to the ground at the edge of the driveway.
Woods said officers are allowed to use deadly force to protect somebody who is in danger of being killed by another person. A Taser, he said, is generally reserved for situations where there is no immediate threat of death.
Bryant’s death sparked calls for change from local activists and elected leaders alike. Hundreds of demonstrators staged a sit-in at Ohio State University’s student union Wednesday and then marched through town in protest. The previous night, about 100 protesters circled the streets of downtown Columbus. They were followed by vehicles honking horns, waving Black Lives Matter flags and chanting, “No justice, no peace,” as they passed the Statehouse, city hall and police headquarters.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, addressed Bryant’s death at a news conference, saying that he had watched video of the shooting and that the investigation must “play out.”
“Any time anyone is killed, it’s a tragedy. Any time a teenager, a child, is killed, it’s a horrible tragedy,” DeWine said.