Columbus, Ohio, police shooting kills teen girl; angry crowd gathers

On Apr 21, 2021

Hazel Bryant is embraced after addressing a crowd with her anger at Columbus police over the fatal shooting of her niece on Legion Lane on the Southeast Side.

An angry crowd protested near a home on the Southeast Side where a Columbus police officer fatally shot someone while responding to an attempted stabbing call.

The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation was on the scene Tuesday night on the 3100 block of Legion Lane, between Chatterton and Refugee roads to investigate a fatal shooting by a Columbus police officer. The shooting occurred just before a jury convicted former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin of two counts of murder and one count of manslaughter in the death of George Floyd on May 25.

Police received a 911 call at 4:35 p.m. about an attempted stabbing on the 3100 block of Legion Lane, which is located north of Chatterton Road. The caller reported a female was trying to stab them, then the caller hung up.

Officers responded to the scene and at 4:45 p.m. an officer-involved shooting was reported.

The scene on Legion Lane on Columbus' Southeast Side following a fatal police shooting. Columbus police responded around 4:35 p.m. Tuesday following a 911 call where the caller reported that someone was trying to stab them and then hung up.

Columbus Fire medics were cleared to come into the scene at 4:46 p.m., police said. The wounded person was transported in critical condition to Mount Carmel East hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 5:21 p.m., police said.

No one else was injured, Columbus police dispatch said.

Police have provided no information about the person shot or the circumstances of the shooting.

Hazel Bryant told The Dispatch that she is the aunt of the 15-year-old girl who was shot. The girl lived in a foster home there on Legion Lane and got into an altercation with someone else at the home, she said.

Bryant said her niece had a knife, but maintained that the girl dropped the knife before she was shot multiple times by a police officer.

Protesters with Black Lives Matter signs, megaphones and a loudspeaker joined the crowd gathered behind crime scene tape about a half-block away from the shooting scene. About 50 people had gathered by 8:30 p.m.

“We don’t get to celebrate nothing,” K.C. Taynor said through a megaphone of the Chauvin verdict. “…In the end, you know what, you can’t be Black.”

Kiara Yakita, founder of the Black Liberation Movement Central Ohio, said she is not surprised that another police shooting happened. “Why did they kill this baby?” she asked aloud.

Mike Fair, 63, of the East Fair, brought an amplifier and a microphone to the scene, and expressed his anger, suggesting “there should be an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”

We’re not going to sit here and just sit around while you kill us, then go back in the suburbs,” one protester said.

“Over and over, keep killing us” another protester said.

Hana Abdur-Rahim, with the Black Abolitionists Collective, said, “We are in a literal genocide. We are fighting for our lives.”

During a council committee hearing Tuesday evening that allowed members to meet nominees for a new police civilian review board to investigate officers’ uses of force, Council president Shannon Hardin announced that there had been another police shooting.

“We don’t know very much as it stands, and as we watched the verdict from Minneapolis many talked about the sigh of relief — but there is a truth that for so many in our community there is no relief. This is not alright, it’s not OK, and it can’t continue on.

“We’re going to need to have the utmost transparency as we go through and learn more (about the latest incident). But the truth is that nothing that we will do will bring this young baby girl back. Nothing will stop the family from grieving.”