Police kill Ma Khia Bryant, 16, who attacked 2 with knife
FARNOUSH AMIRI and ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS, Report for America/Associated Press
April 21, 2021
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1of26In an image from police bodycam video that the Columbus Police Department played during a news conference Tuesday night, April 20, 2021, a teenage girl, foreground, appears to wield a knife during an altercation before being shot by a police officer Tuesday, April 20, 2021, in Columbus, Ohio. Police shot and the girl just as the verdict was being announced in the trial for the killing of George Floyd. State law allows police to use deadly force to protect themselves or others, and investigators will determine whether this shooting was such an instance, Interim Police Chief Michael Woods said at the news conference. (Columbus Police Department via WSYX-TV via AP)APShow MoreShow Less
WOSU
Demonstrators gathered in front of Columbus Police headquarters to protest the fatal police shooting of 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant.
Protesters were back on the streets of Columbus Tuesday, hours after a police officer fatally shot a Black teenage girl following a 911 call.
The fatal shooting occurred seconds after officers arrived at the scene of a reported disturbance on Legion Lane on Columbus Southeast side.
Body camera footage released by police shows several people fighting in a driveway. The video shows Ma Khia Bryant, 16, pushing one person to the ground before appearing to swing a knife at another person.
The police officer yells “get down” repeatedly and fires four shots, hitting Bryant.
Franklin County Children’s Services identified the girl who was killed as 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant. Protests also quickly formed at the scene of the shooting and the city’s police headquarters.
Here’s what we know Wednesday:
The video shows an officer approaching a driveway with a group of young people standing there. In the video, it appears Bryant pushes or swings at a person, who falls to the ground.
Bryant then appears to swing a knife at a girl who is on the hood of a car, and the officer fires his weapon, striking Bryant, who died a short time later.
I wish to hell it hadn t happened.
Ma Khia Bryant s death after being shot by a Columbus police officer on Tuesday afternoon has become the latest in a series of high-profile shootings by police across the country.
Activists and city leaders alike called for reform, both with police policy and in efforts to curb the rising violence in Columbus.
As more information was being released about the shooting, which occurred around 4:45 p.m. Tuesday on the 3100 block of Legion Lane, Ohio State University students were staging a sit-in on campus about about 500 students marched down High Street.
Bryant died at a nearby hospital on Tuesday after she was shot by an officer who was responding to a call about an attempted stabbing.
There will never be a police shooting of a black person that doesn’t spark some degree of outrage, it seems. In some cases, I can get it. If you’ve been told the police are your enemy and are out to kill you, and then someone dies, why
wouldn’t you get upset?
However, there are times in which you look and you have to recognize that the threat warranted the actions.
That certainly seems to be the case after a teenage girl was shot and killed by police in Columbus, Ohio.
An Ohio police officer shot and killed a teenage girl Tuesday as she attacked two other people with what appeared to be a knife in east Columbus, body camera footage released just hours after the fatal shooting shows.