Ma’Khia Bryant, a 16-year-old black girl, was fatally shot by a white police officer outside her home, after calling the police for help on Tuesday, April 20th.
As The Columbus Dispatch report, Police were called to a foster home at 4:30pm local time following reports of an attempted stabbing. Bryant reportedly called emergency services after a group of “older kids” threatened her with assault.
Body camera footage of the incident has been released. The footage shows police approaching a group of young people, in the video it appears that Ma’Khia Bryant swings a knife at a girl on the hood of a car, the officer at the scene proceeds to fire his weapon four times. Bryant was taken to a local hospital in critical condition where she was later pronounced dead.
In a press conference, Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther said the “officers took action to protect another young girl.”
“It’s a tragic day in the city of Columbus. It’s a horrible, heartbreaking situation,” Mayor Andrew J. Ginther added. “We felt transparency in sharing this footage, as incomplete as it is at this time” was crucial.
The fatal shooting occurred 20 minutes after the verdict in the George Floyd trial, which saw former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin charged on two counts of murder, was reached.
Hazel Bryant, the aunt of Ma’Khia Bryant, told The Dispatch that the girl lived in a foster home on Legion Lane, and got into an altercation with someone else at the home.
The girl’s mother told @10TV her daughter’s name was Ma’Khia Bryant. Her aunt told us she was 15, but her mom says she was 16. She told @LaceyCrisp Ma’Khia was an honor roll student and a sweet child. Police shot and killed her on Legion Lane at 4:30 p.m. today. pic.twitter.com/qL4zh6uFyG
— Angela Reighard (@AngelaReighard) April 21, 2021
Following news of the shooting, at least a dozen Black Lives Matter protestors gathered around the scene, but were cleared out by 10.30pm.
Columbus has been traumatised by incidents of systemic racism and police brutality since December, after Casey Goodson Jr., a 23-year-old boy, was shot to death at the entrance of his home by a Franklin County sheriff’s deputy.
“As we breathed a collective sigh of relief today, a community in Columbus felt the sting of another police shooting” Ben Crump, the Floyd family’s lawyer said in a statement. “Another child lost! Another hashtag.”
