Swiftly released bodycam footage shows 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant apparently trying to stab someone before an officer opens fire.
Ma’Khia Bryant; bodycam footage (right) shows her apparently attempting to stab someone before being fatally shot by police (YouTube)
Hundreds of demonstrators assembled at the police headquarters in Columbus, Ohio on Tuesday night after officers responding to an attempted stabbing fatally shot a 16-year-old girl.
The crowd forced their way past police barriers to approach the building, where they chanted the name of Ma’Khia Bryant, who was shot dead hours earlier outside of a home in the city.
Officers with bicycles attempted to push protesters back and threatened to deploy pepper spray.
As protests continued outside the headquarters, city officials released bodycam footage of the fatal incident.
The video shows an officer approach a driveway where a group of young people are standing. Bryant then appears to push or swing at a person, who falls to the ground, before swinging a knife at a girl who is on the hood of a car.
In the clip, the officer then fires what sounds like four shots, striking Bryant, who later died.
“It’s a tragic day in the city of Columbus. It’s a horrible, heartbreaking situation,” Mayor Andrew J. Ginther said, according to The Columbus Dispatch. “We felt transparency in sharing this footage, as incomplete as it is at this time, was critical.”
“Based on this footage, the officer took action to protect another young girl in our community,” the mayor continued. “But a family is grieving tonight. And this young 15-year-old girl will never be coming home.”
Police were initially called to a home on Legion Lane around 3:45 p.m. Tuesday following a report of an attempted stabbing, WSYX reported.
It wasn’t immediately clear who made the 911 call.
After being shot, Bryant was taken to hospital in critical condition and pronounced dead just before 5:30 p.m.
An aunt of Bryant told The Columbus Dispatch that the teen got into an altercation with someone she lives with in a foster home on the block.
The aunt said that Bryant had a knife, but claimed she had dropped it before the officer opened fire, the newspaper reported.
A Wisconsin judge is at the center of a growing national debate after being arrested by the FBI for allegedly helping an undocumented immigrant evade ICE agents.
Whistleblower says a female co-worker faked documents, experimented on dismembered limbs, and cremated the remains at a North Austin mortuary.
Pennsylvania nutrition director finds herself in deep trouble after turning a convenience store cooler into an unlicensed restroom.
Cops are hunting a Bronx man accused of one of the most disturbing subway crimes in recent memory – and that’s saying something.
It’s the high-class hooker scandal shaking Boston’s elite—34 well-heeled men, including doctors, executives, and a city councilor, unmasked as alleged johns in a secret luxury sex ring stretching from Cambridge to D.C.
When Clint Bonnell told his wife he was leaving her for another woman, prosecutors say she had a deadly – and messy – response.
This website uses cookies.