Staff Reporter: US police have shot dead an unarmed black man in Columbus, Ohio. A few months ago, a young man named George Floyd was brutally murdered. Protests erupted across the United States over the deaths. A large part of the people of the country joined in the protest on Thursday against the murder of this black youth. Police have killed two blacks this month.
Early Tuesday morning, Coy shot and killed 47-year-old Andre Maurice Hill at a home on the 1000 block of Oberlin Drive where he was visiting, police said.
Hill was shot by Coy after officers responded to a non-emergency disturbance complaint from a neighbor at 1:37 a.m. Tuesday about a person sitting in an SUV and turning its engine on and off repeatedly, police said.
According to previous reporting by The Dispatch, Coy had nine complaints filed against him in 2003, four of those coming in a one-month period. Coy received written counseling, The Dispatch reported at the time.
A small set of candles adorn a sidewalk on Oberlin Drive on the Northwest Side Wednesday, near the site of Tuesday’s fatal police shooting of Andre Maurice Hill.
Read more:What we know about the fatal shooting of a Black man early Tuesday by Columbus police In 2012, the city paid a $45,000 settlement to a man whom Coy had stopped for drunken driving one morning at 3 a.m.
According to reports from The Dispatch, a cruiser camera showed Coy “banging the driver’s head into the hood four times during the arrest.” His actions were deemed “excessive for the situation.” Coy was suspended for 160 hours for that incident.
Police said Coy has been relieved of duty pending the outcome of investigations into Tuesday’s shooting. The Dispatch has requested a copy of Coy’s latest personnel file from the Division of Police.
Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther, middle, and Director of Public Safety Ned Pettus prepare to speak outside City Hall on Tuesday.
Coy could not be reached for comment Wednesday. His two-story home in Union County is decorated for Christmas, but now has a store-bought “No Trespassing” sign taped to the front door. Neighbors did not respond to knocks at their doors by The Dispatch, and the only nearby neighbor outside shooed a reporter away.
Body camera use and medical aid delayed
Mayor Andrew J. Ginther said at a press conference Tuesday that neither Coy nor another officer who responded but did not fire a weapon turned on their body cameras until after the shooting had occurred.
The body cameras have a 60-second “look-back” feature that captures video, but not audio. This look-back recorded the shooting, indicating the officers turned the cameras on within 60 seconds after the shooting took place.
Ginther and Columbus police Chief Thomas Quinlan are furious because division policy for the body cameras, which were a $5 million investment by the city, requires officers to have the cameras on “when dispatched or upon a self-initiated response to a Priority 1 or 2 call for service.”
The disturbance complaint on Tuesday morning was made through the division’s non-emergency phone line. Disturbances typically are dispatched as “Priority 3” — or “get to them as soon as you can get to them” — calls, which was the case with the Tuesday morning call.
Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation agents work the scene of an officer-involved shooting on Tuesday.
Division policy for “Priority 3″ calls was not listed online, but division policy does state that officers should activate their body cameras when calls that are not for service become”enforcement actions” or become adversarial. The camera should be turned on “at the start of an enforcement action or at the first reasonable opportunity to do so,” the policy states.
The body camera footage indicates Coy and the other officer, who has not been identified, also delayed giving medical aid to Hill after the shooting, the city said in a Department of Public Safety statement released Tuesday afternoon.
Division policy says that all sworn personnel are required to render “appropriate aid and/or summon emergency medical services … as soon as it is reasonable and safe to do so.”
Footage shows quick confrontation, long delay after shooting
The body camera footage was released Wednesday afternoon, after Hill’s family viewed it privately.
The more than 13 minutes of video captures the officers getting out of their cruisers and walking up the driveway to the open garage door at the Oberlin Drive home. Hill has his back turned to police. He turns around and takes four steps toward the officers with his cellphone up in his left hand and his right hand in the pocket of a winter coat.
Coy then shoots Hill and approaches him. The audio now on, Coy tells Hill to roll over, saying he can’t see his right hand. Coy then asks if a medic is coming.
According to the video, at least six minutes pass before aid is rendered to Hill. Coy does not provide any initial aid and in the intervening minutes, crime scene tape is placed around the scene and more officers arrive.
No weapon was recovered at the scene and the video shows what appear to be a set of keys lying next to Hill near where his right hand was. It is unclear when aid was provided to Hill as Coy’s body camera is facing away from the driveway and garage area.
Hill was taken by paramedics to Ohio Health Riverside Methodist Hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.
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