Columbus Cop Shoots/Kills 16-Yr-Old Black Girl Who Had A Knife

[Speedy]

With all those people around, good that the cop hit only the intended target.

[Lemon Drop]

How does anyone know she was holding a knife? That's the police version. The video is blurry.

How do you know she was not defending herself from the adults who were there with her? ( they weren't other teen girls according to witnesses.

The girl was in foster care.
Was she being abused?

The mayor of Columbus sounded nervous after more video and witness testimony came out.


What on earth are "experts" doing exonerating the cops with NO investigation and so few facts?

It's not just cops who need to slow it down.
It is just way to soon to draw firm conclusions here.

[Speedy]

Lemon Drop wrote:
How does anyone know she was holding a knife? That's the police version. The video is blurry.

Not too blurry to see it’s a knife.

[graylocks]

Speedy wrote:
[quote=Lemon Drop]
How does anyone know she was holding a knife? That's the police version. The video is blurry.

Not too blurry to see it’s a knife.
very clearly saw a knife and what she was trying to do with it.

[RAMd®d]

How does anyone know she was holding a knife?

It's very clearly displayed several time in the video.


How do you know she was not defending herself from the adults who were there with her


The video shows the suspect attacking one of the girls from behind.

There is no indication I can see that the first victim was stabbed.

After she knocks the girl down, and as the adult is kicking that girl while she's down, the suspect charges the girl in pink, who had been walking quite casually.

After the cop yells at the suspect to get down, the knife is plainly seen in her hand raised above to the overhand position as the cop fires.

There is no element of self-defense in the suspect's actions as seen in the video.

The cop did what needed to be done in that specific circumstance.

What the video doesn't tell us is why the suspect attacked the two girls.

It also doesn't tell us how the situation got to the point of police being called about a potential stabbing, with adults just casually standing around.

It doesn't tell us who called the police.

And it doesn't tell us why that adult kicked one of the victims.

The investigation is ongoing, and I hope that it answers the above questions.

But the chain of events depicted in the video seem quite clear.

[Blankity Blank]

Lemon Drop wrote:
How does anyone know she was holding a knife? That's the police version. The video is blurry.

The latest, at the moment, from released video.

[Lemon Drop]

The witnesses are in agreement that she had a knife. The foster mother, who was not home at the time, has described the argument over housekeeping that she says led up to the aggressive behavior:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/22/us/ohio-c...index.html

The witnesses are not at all in agreement that the only good solution here was to shoot and kill this girl.

The officer who fired the shots has been on the force 16 months.

These events have to be opportunities to get better at de-escalating violence. A lot of people failed this deceased young lady.

[RAMd®d]

The witnesses are in agreement that she had a knife.


Wholly irrelevant.

She did have a knife and there is physical evidence of that, witness testimony or not.

The officer saw the threat and took appropriate action.



The witnesses are not at all in agreement that the only good solution here was to shoot and kill this girl.



So what, as if they did anything to mitigate the situation before the police were called.

No, it wasn't a good solution, but as the video shows, it was the only solution which realistically could have prevented a worse outcome for the second girl.

Do they or you have any viable suggestions that would have prevented her death while simultaneously preventing the girl in pink from being stabbed, and are you willing to bet her life on that?


The foster mother, who was not home at the time, has described the argument over housekeeping that she says led up to the aggressive behavior:


While knowing some background is interesting, it doesn't make this a '16yo girl killed by police over dirty laundry' issue and is irrelevant to the officer's response.

She was an active threat with a deadly weapon.

Not that it matters, but do you think either of the two victims were in fear for their lives?

Or do you think the suspect was 'just playin'?



The officer who fired the shots has been on the force 16 months.

And performed admirably, doing a thankless job in a lose-lose situation, preventing one if not two injuries or deaths.



These events have to be opportunities to get better at de-escalating violence.


This event shows that deescalation had/has to begin long before the police were called.

That officer only had time to say 'what's going on' before the threats materialized.

At what point could what deescalation tools have been utilized between the time of the officer arriving and his stopping the attack?

While not a deescalation, a Taser is a less-lethal tool that is a poor choice against a deadly weapon.

If both probes don't strike the suspect properly, or if it doesn't immediately stop the suspect, he/she is still a threat to a victim.

Not to mention, I'm not even sure that department has Tasers.



A lot of people failed this deceased young lady.


Ain't that a kick in the head.

The suspect deserved better than whatever led up to her becoming an active threat.

But then she crossed a line.

[deckeda]

It’s not admirable to kill a child, sorry. At best it’s the easy out. This fascination with certainty and guaranteed but narrow outcomes isn’t enforcement, it’s artificial justification based on pre-determined criteria, NOT situational criteria.

The other day cops killed a dude when they came to his house to arrest him on an outstanding warrant. He decided to get into his car and drive away. 14 shell casings later he’s dead. The fact that he was unarmed didn’t matter because the cops said his situation was pre-determined risk based on their training. Their training apparently does not include imminent threat, but assumed threat. Nothing situational, nothing “in the moment, how could they know” about it!

These guys are not making split-second decisions under hyper stressful conditions. That’s a myth and a lie. They see X, they do Y and to hell with the circumstances. It’s all in a training book somewhere. Probably a video.

RAMd®d wrote:

While not a deescalation, a Taser is a less-lethal tool that is a poor choice against a deadly weapon.

If both probes don't strike the suspect properly, or if it doesn't immediately stop the suspect, he/she is still a threat to a victim.

Not to mention, I'm not even sure that department has Tasers.

Anything else, while we’re speculating?

I wasn’t aware tasers at close range were unreliable enough to not even be worth a try. She looked like she had plenty of area and thin clothing for taser probes to find purchase, no? I’d be shocked (no pun intended) that someone would still have both the strength and coordination after such an encounter. Anything that stops someone, even if it’s just a shoulder tap, remains perfectly capable against a lethal weapon, right? Then again, bullets can also miss. Maybe that’s why 4 is better than just one? Still no reply to that.

[graylocks]

Lemon Drop wrote:
A lot of people failed this deceased young lady.

That I completely agree with. Her Village was missing in action.