Death of Andre Hill ruled homicide as police officer awaits employment ruling

The police shooting death of Andre Hill, a Black man from Columbus, Ohio, who was unarmed at the time of his death, was ruled a homicide Monday by Franklin County’s coroner.

A brief, preliminary autopsy report released by the coroner’s office listed “multiple gunshot wounds” as Hill’s cause of death. Body camera footage of the shooting, which is missing audio for the first minute, revealed that Officer Adam Coy shot Hill within seconds of arriving at Hill’s house and confronting Hill in the doorway of his garage.

“It’s outrageous and unconscionable that an officer responding to a non-emergency call would default to concluding that Andre Hill was a threat and fire multiple, deadly rounds into him, when Andre was only holding a cell phone,” tweeted the Hill family’s attorney Ben Crump.

“Andre Hill’s death is another tragic example of the tendency of police to view Black people as criminal or dangerous, and it points to the need for comprehensive, national police reform. The family wants to review all the bodycam footage as soon as possible,” he added.

The city’s police chief recommended that Coy be terminated last week and released a statement stressing that the shooting was being investigated by Ohio’s Bureau of Investigation. A disciplinary hearing for Coy was held by the city’s Department of Public Safety on Monday, and Coy remains suspended while he awaits the agency’s judgement.

“I have seen everything I need to see to reach the conclusion that Officer Coy must be terminated, immediately. Some may call this a rush to judgment. It is not,” chief Thomas Quinlan said in the statement

“We have an officer who violated his oath to comply with the rules and policies of the Columbus Division of Police. And the consequences of that violation are so great, it requires immediate action. This violation cost an innocent man his life,” he added.

In the video, Coy can be heard demanding Hill’s compliance with applying restraints after shooting him repeatedly. Other officers who arrived at the scene are under investigation for not turning their body cameras on, while Coy was cited by the police chief in his statement for his body camera not being fully activated, not rendering aid after the shooting and the shooting itself.

Dozens gathered last week for a vigil in Hill’s honor; the U.S. saw months of widespread protests earlier this year in response to other killings of Black Americans by police, beginning with the death of George Floyd in May.