Police in Blendon Township, Ohio, released body camera video on Friday showing an officer fatally shooting a woman who allegedly accelerated her car towards the officer after she was accused of stealing from a grocery store.
Ta’Kiya Young, 21, of Columbus was seven months pregnant when she died in the Aug. 24 shooting, her family said.
Blendon Township police officers were in a Kroger’s parking lot assisting a driver who was locked out of her car when a store employee told one of the officers that someone who had allegedly stolen bottles of alcohol was fleeing, Police Chief John Belton said in a statement after the shooting.
The newly released body camera footage reviewed by ABC News shows Young parked in front of the store refusing to leave the vehicle despite repeated orders from police. One officer was on the driver’s side while the other was directly in front of the vehicle.
The video shows the officer on the driver’s side telling Young that she was accused of stealing, which she denies.
The officer again tells her to get out of the car, according to the video, which Young appears to verbally refuse to do.
He bangs on the driver’s side window as Young appears to ask the officer in front of the vehicle, “You going to shoot me?”
In footage from the officer in front of the car, he pointed his gun at Young and yelled for her to exit the vehicle while using an expletive.
The car then accelerates forward, pushing against the officer in front of the car, who then fires a single shot through the windshield, according to the video. The car continued to move forward.
The officers announce “shots fired” as they chase the vehicle for several feet before it comes to a stop, video shows.
As they chase the car, one officer orders Young to stop the car while pointing a gun at her, according to the footage. The video then shows the officers smashing the driver’s side window.
Officers had to break through the locked driver’s window to give Young medical assistance, the police chief later said, adding that they also immediately called EMS and the officer who shot her “sprinted to his car to get a trauma kit, which he quickly employed.”
Belton said Young later died at St. Ann’s hospital.
In a statement issued Friday alongside the body camera video, the police chief said that the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) is reviewing the incident and the officer who fired the fatal shot is placed on administrative leave.
The second officer was also initially placed on administrative leave, but Belton said he didn’t see a reason to keep him on it after seeing the video, he said.
“This was a tragedy. Ms Young’s family is understandably very upset and grieving,” Belton said. “While none of us can fully understand the depths of their pain, all of us can remember them in our prayers and give them the time and space to deal with this heartbreaking turn of events.”
Neither of the police officers were named.
Through their attorneys at Walton & Brown LLP, Ta’Kiya Young’s family released a statement Friday following the body camera video release that said, “it is undeniable that Ta’Kiya’s death was not only avoidable, but also a gross misuse of power and authority. As if the pain of losing Ta’Kiya isn’t enough, we must grapple with the knowledge that her unborn daughter was also robbed of her life in this hateful act.”
The statement added, “After seeing the video footage of her death, this is clearly a criminal act and the family demands a swift indictment of this officer for the killings of both Ta’Kiyah and her unborn daughter.”
In an interview with ABC News on Wednesday, Sean Walton Jr, an attorney for the Young family, called for accountability and justice, urging that the name of the officer who fired the shot be released and for the officer to be “terminated and indicted immediately.”
Steven Irwin, a press secretary for the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, told ABC News this week that BCI’s investigation into the incident is “active and ongoing.” He also said it will not release the names of the officers because “they are considered to be uncharged suspects in our criminal investigation.”
In an interview with ABC News on Wednesday prior to the video’s release, Nadine Young, the grandmother of Ta’Kiya Young, remembered her “fireball spirit” and “cheese smile.”
Nadine Young said, “It was two people murdered that day — [Ta’Kiya Young] and her little baby girl.”
“It’s a lot about her that I will miss,” Nadine Young said, noting that she will especially miss how great of a mother Ta’Kiya Young was to her two surviving sons, ages three and six. “She was a mama and a daddy for [her] kids. She went hard.”
By ABC News