Body-camera footage released in Columbus police shooting

Authorities in Columbus, Ohio, have released body-camera footage of a police shooting that left a teenage girl dead minutes before the verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial was announced in Minneapolis on Tuesday. 

Video of the incident shows an officer with the Columbus Police Department (CPD) approaching a driveway where a group of young people are standing. Among them was Ma’Khia Bryant, 16, who apparently pushes or swings at a person and falls to the ground, the Columbus Dispatch reported. 

Bryant then appears to swing a knife at another girl who is on the hood of a car, according to the newspaper, and an officer fires their weapon four times, hitting Bryant, who later died from her injuries. 

Mayor Andrew Ginther (D) said Tuesday night that the body-camera footage was being reviewed and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) officials were on the scene. 

“This afternoon a young woman tragically lost her life. We do not know all of the details. There is body-worn camera footage of the incident. We are working to review it as soon as possible. BCI is on the scene conducting an independent investigation … as they do with all CPD-involved shootings,” Ginther said. 

At a news conference on Tuesday, Franklin County Children’s Services confirmed Bryant’s identity and said she was in foster care. 

Police said they responded to the scene Tuesday afternoon on a report of an attempted stabbing. 

Videos and photos taken near the scene of the shooting show protesters gathering there on Tuesday night. 

“We don’t get to celebrate nothing,” demonstrator K.C. Taynor said in reference to the Chauvin verdict. “In the end, you know what, you can’t be Black.”

Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer, was found guilty of murdering George Floyd last summer. The case that was widely seen as a referendum on police brutality and systemic racism in the criminal justice system.