One officer fired his weapon, officials said, striking a 47-year-old man, who died at the hospital just before 2:30 a.m. The 60-second body camera look back shows the man walking toward the officer with a cell phone in his left hand, the release said. When police arrived at the home on the city’s northwest side, they found a garage door open and a man inside, city officials said. The caller reported that a man had been sitting in his SUV for an extended period, repeatedly turning his engine on and off. McFadden and her supporters held a protest in front of the Division of Police in downtown Columbus, Ohio to support McFadden and to continue to speak out against police brutality and racism within the CPD.Protest against police brutality and racism in Columbus, US - Stephen Zenner/SOPA Images/Shutterstockīlack officers say Columbus, Ohio, police prejudice isn't limited to civilians: They're battling it, tooĪccording to a Columbus Department of Public Safety news release, police responded to a non-emergency call shortly after 1:37 a.m. “Black people deserve to live in safety and peace and in thriving communities without the looming threat of state-sanctioned violence,” the YWCA Columbus said in a statement.Mandatory Credit: Photo by Stephen Zenner/SOPA Images/Shutterstock (10971388h)Melissa McFadden speaks to her supporters in front of the Columbus Division of Police.Melissa McFadden, a 24 year veteran of the Columbus Police Department, released a book titled "Walking the Thin Black Line: Confronting Racism in the Columbus Division of Police" in September of 2020, and has received a significant backlash for condemning many of the CPD's actions as "racist". In the past days, several groups in the city have described Lewis’ death as evidence of the “significant, ongoing harm perpetuated against Black people” at the hands of law enforcement and began organizing forums, prayers and protests to be held Friday and over the weekend. In recent years, there have been some changes like city officials acknowledging systemic racism and the ongoing review by the US Department of Justice into the Columbus Division of Police, but activists, scholars and residents often feel is incremental, with “little to no urgency,” and without fully embracing the community’s input. The national attention in the aftermath of the police shootings and deaths “has enlightened the country as to the persistent police threat that Black and brown people feel in our daily lives as Columbus citizens,” Walton said. “It is not that the recent spate of shootings is a new development,” he said. As the years passed, Walton says he’s seen how body cameras and cell phone videos have proved “what the people living in Columbus have long known.” He filed his first lawsuit in 2016 and within a year he took the cases of three other Black men who were killed by police at the time. His family and attorney Sean Walton continue pushing for accountability. was shot and killed by a Franklin County sheriff's deputy on December 2020. Sean Walton, an attorney representing the families of several Black men killed by police in the city, started his career as a personal injury attorney but expanded his practice to civil rights litigation more than five years ago after meeting a family who was protesting the death of a relative outside the county courthouse.Ĭasey Goodson, Jr. In 2018, police statistics show, almost 55% of CDP’s use-of-force incidents targeted Black people, who compose less than 29% of the city’s population. “I grew up not wanting to be around police officers thinking that they were out to do you harm,” he said. Haygood recalls White enforcement officers confronting demonstrators during racial protests in 1968 and other times when he was stopped by police for no clear reason. Haygood, a visiting scholar at the Miami University in Ohio who grew up in Columbus, said the lives of Black people in the city have been marked by interactions with law enforcement for generations. “There are good people in Columbus who know the problem is severe but their knowledge of it does not seem to be listening the issue at all and that’s very worrisome,” said Wil Haygood, a journalist and biographer chronicling the lives Black Americans and who has written multiple books about life in Columbus. Kyle Robertson/Columbus Dispatch/USA TodayĬity and county officials promised to address the disparities people of color face in many areas, including health, poverty, economic mobility, education, crime, and food access when they passed resolutions declaring racism a public health crisis in 2020 but the criticism of Columbus officers’ treatment of Black residents and allegations of racism and discrimination among the police department’s ranks continue to fuel mistrust among the community. Donovan Lewis' mother Rebecca Duran is embraced as the police body camera footage the deadly shooting is shown at a press conference earlier this week.
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