COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther sent a letter Wednesday to the Department of Justice asking for an investigation into the citys police department following a spate of police killings of Black people.
The Democratic mayor said that while the city is committed to reform and has already established a number of significant changes in the past few years, it is not enough.
The Justice Department recently announced its opening probes into policing in Louisville, Kentucky, over the March 2020 death of Breonna Taylor, and in Minneapolis following last years death of George Floyd.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. APs earlier story follows below.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) There should be a federal investigation into the fatal shooting of MaKhia Bryant by a Columbus police officer, along with a probe into the handling of Bryants foster care placement, a lawyer representing the teen's family said Wednesday.
Attorney Michelle Martin wouldn't discuss details of why Bryant was in foster care, besides the fact that at the time, the family needed help. But she added that Bryant was in the system for too long.
Bryant "was a 16-year-old vibrant, bubbly girl, whose life was cut short by many of our failing systems, Martin told reporters Wednesday. We are going to investigate every agency that had the time and the opportunity to prevent MaKhias death.
In addition to a federal probe, Martin wants an investigation of Ohio's health and human services agency, which oversees the foster care system.
Bryants father, Myron Hammonds, and her paternal grandmother, Jeanene Hammonds, were present at the conference and spoke about the pain of losing the teenager.
To know MaKhia is to know life, said the father, who was on the scene the day his daughter was shot. She was with me for 16 years and she was my peacemaker.
Jeanene Hammonds called the events of last Tuesday tragic, and unimaginable.
I want justice for my grandbaby, she added.
Bryants two younger sisters, Janiah and Azariah Bryant, were also at the press conference. Janiah Bryant was living with Ma'Khia at the foster home in the southeast Columbus neighborhood where the shooting took place. The attorney did not allow the minors or other family members to speak about the day of the shooting or what they saw, citing the family's independent investigation into what happened.
Bryant died April 20, less than an hour before the guilty verdict in Derek Chauvin's murder trial of George Floyd. Columbus police officer Nicholas Reardon fired four shots at her as she swung a knife at a young woman. Reardon is white and Bryant was Black.
Critics of police use of force and witnesses of the shooting including Bryant's father and grandmother have demanded to know why the officer didn't use other tactics to stop Bryant short of shooting her, such as deploying a stun gun.
But many use of force experts and even some civil rights attorneys have said the officer followed his training and may have saved the girl Bryant was attacking. The national Fraternal Order of Police called the shooting an act of heroism, but one with tragic results.
Events leading to the shooting began late in the afternoon after someone in Bryant's foster home it's still unclear who called 911 and said someone was trying to stab people in the house.
Reardon, who has been on the force since December 2019, was dispatched minutes later.
Hey, whats going on? Reardon asked upon exiting his vehicle.
In the next 11 seconds, Bryant was seen charging at 20-year-old Shai-Onta Lana Craig-Watkins with a kitchen knife and then moving on to 22-year-old Tionna Bonner before Reardon yelled, Get down! and fired four consecutive shots into Bryants chest.
Hours after the shooting, protesters flooded the streets of downtown Columbus, chanting Bryant's name along with the names of the other Black people who have been killed during encounters with Columbus police in recent months.
One of those names was Andre Hill. Earlier Wednesday, Adam Coy, the officer who fatally shot 47-year-old Hill in December, pleaded not guilty to an additional charge of reckless homicide in that case. The plea came minutes before the state attorney general's office, who is prosecuting the former officer, dropped two dereliction of duty charges against Coy.
But the prosecution in Coy's case remains confident in their case.
Our case is sound and based on the facts and we are prepared to move forward with the trial, Anthony Pierson, Senior Assistant Attorney General, said in a statement.
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Farnoush Amiri is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
