Media Analysis Shows Columbus Police are Disproportionately Shooting and Killing Black Males. Although the Liberal, White City is Only 29% Black, 63% of the People Killed by Cops were Black

From [HERE] and [MORE] Regardless of quite a few measures carried out to reform policing in Columbus over the previous two years, police shootings have continued to disproportionately contain Black males — a disparity that has continued since at the very least 2012, a Dispatch evaluation has discovered.

Columbus metropolis officers have carried out quite a few management and coverage modifications inside the Division of Police since December 2020, when two Black males had been shot by legislation enforcement officers within the metropolis: 23-year-old Casey Goodson Jr., who was fatally shot by former Franklin County Sheriff’s deputy Jason Meade; and Andre Hill, who was fatally shot by former Columbus police officer Adam Coy. Each officers are dealing with prison prices in these deaths.

Within the wake of these modifications, the overall variety of shootings by metropolis law enforcement officials did fall from double digits yearly from 2012 to 2020 to a complete of six in 2021, the Dispatch evaluation discovered. However all six of the individuals shot in 2021 had been Black — 4 males and two females — and three of these had been deadly.

All six of the individuals shot by metropolis law enforcement officials to date in 2022 additionally had been Black males. The lone loss of life occurred on Aug. 30 when 20-year-old Donovan Lewis, who was biracial, was shot by Officer Ricky Anderson whereas serving warrants for his arrest on a number of prices.

“We now have to know the depth of the ache, and fairly actually, the phobia that’s felt within the communities that have (police shootings),” stated Ayesha Bell Hardaway, affiliate professor of legislation and director of the Social Justice Heart at Case Western Reserve College in Cleveland.

Since 2012, there have been 156 shootings involving Columbus police during which 169 individuals both had been struck or in any other case concerned. Of these 169 individuals, 104 have been Black males, representing 62% of the overall of individuals concerned.

The identical knowledge from a span of greater than 10 ½-years exhibits that fifty of the 156 shootings have resulted in 54 individuals dying, 34 of whom have been Black males. That representing 63% of the deaths by the hands of police.

Census knowledge from July 2021 exhibits Columbus’ inhabitants as being 29.2% Black.

In 2020, Mayor Andrew J. Ginther and the Fraternal Order of Police entered into an settlement with the Ohio Bureau of Felony Investigation for the state company to research shootings involving Columbus law enforcement officials. Since that point, BCI has been requested to research greater than a dozen shootings, 5 of which have been deadly.

The latest incident during which Lewis was shot and killed occurred shortly after 2 a.m. on Aug. 30. Police had gone to Lewis’ house to arrest him on a number of excellent warrants, together with misdemeanor prices for home violence and assault of his pregnant girlfriend and a felony cost of improperly dealing with a firearm. [MORE]