State finishes investigation into Columbus police shooting of Donovan Lewis

The Franklin County prosecutor has named two special prosecutors who will present a grand jury with the results of a state investigation into the Columbus police shooting death of an unarmed Black man last summer.

Tim Merkle and Gary Shroyer will handle the case as special prosecutors. Their appointment come after the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigations finished their probe into the August fatal shooting of Donovan Lewis. Lewis, 20, was shot by office Ricky Anderson immediately after officers opened a bedroom door inside a Hilltop apartment.

Officers were serving a 2 a.m. felony warrant for Lewis on August 30.

In September, Lewis’ family and activists called for state investigators to swiftly tie up their investigation and pass it off to prosecutors and a grand jury.

“Donovan was shot with his arms at his side with a police officer that fired his weapon less than a second after opening the door,” said family attorney Rex Elliott at the time.

“So we’re quite, you know, miffed at how this investigation is not wrapping up. And officer Anderson is not being arrested, cuffed charged and placed in the criminal justice system as opposed to being home on a paid vacation,” Elliott said.

Elliott also questioned why Anderson is on paid leave while Adam Coy, the former Columbus police officer who killed Andre Hill in December 2020, was fired hours after the shooting.

The Columbus Department of Public Safety has declined to answer questions about why Coy was fired so quickly following the Hill shooting but said the office won’t consider disciplining or terminating Anderson until criminal proceedings are over and independent reviews from the Office of the Inspector General and Police Civilian Review Board are completed.

The police review board voted in their September meeting to investigate the shooting of Lewis.