Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) on Wednesday expressed outrage at the killing of a teenage girl by police on Tuesday in Columbus.
“While the verdict was being read in the Derek Chauvin trial, Columbus police shot and killed a sixteen-year-old girl,” Brown said in a tweet posted Wednesday. “Her name was Ma’Khia Bryant. She should be alive right now.”
Police in Columbus have released a bodycam video of the incident that shows an officer with the Columbus Police Department approaching a driveway where a group of young people are standing. Among them was Bryant, 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.
Police said they responded to the scene on a report of an attempted stabbing. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation was on the scene and is investigating the incident, police said.
The shooting in Columbus came just minutes before a jury convicted Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer, of murdering George Floyd during an arrest last summer.
The case was widely viewed as a referendum on police mistreatment of minorities and systemic racism and implicit bias on law enforcement.
On Wednesday morning, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the Department of Justice would conduct a review of the Minneapolis Police Department.
“Although the state’s prosecution was successful, I know that nothing can fill the void that the loved ones of George Floyd have felt since his death,” Garland said. “Yesterday’s verdict in the state criminal trial does not address potentially systemic policing issues in Minneapolis.”
Democrats in Congress hope to use Chauvin’s conviction as an opportunity to spur momentum on passing comprehensive reform measures to policing in America.
“The jury has reached a just verdict. But nothing will bring back George Floyd or all those who should still be alive,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). “We must move urgently to defeat systemic racism in all its forms and the Senate must pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.”