An Ohio police officer was indicted Tuesday on charges including murder in the shooting death of Ta’Kiya Young, a 21-year-old pregnant black mother killed by police in a supermarket parking lot last August
COLUMBUS, Ohio – An Ohio police officer was indicted Tuesday on charges including murder in the shooting of Ta’Kiya Younga 21-year-old pregnant black mother killed by police in a supermarket parking lot last August.
A Franklin County grand jury indicted Blendon Township Police Officer Connor Grubb on charges of murder, manslaughter and felonious assault.
Young was suspected of shoplifting when Grubb and a fellow officer approached her car. The other officer ordered her to leave. Instead, she rolled toward Grubb, who fired a single bullet through the windshield into his chest. The daughter she was expecting three months later also died.
Court records did not list an attorney for Grubb. A message seeking comment was left with Blendon Township police.
Young’s family members called for the officer to be charged soon after the Aug. 24 shooting. After seeing body camera footage showing the officer firing his gun, the family called his actions a “gross abuse of power and authority,” especially considering Young had been accused of a relatively minor crime.
In the video, an officer at the driver’s window tells Young she has been accused of shoplifting and orders her to get out of the car. Young protests, the two officers swear at her and yell at her to get out, and Young can be heard asking, “Are you guys going to shoot me?”
Seconds later, she turns the steering wheel to the right, the car slowly advances and Grubb fires his gun. Moments later, after the car stops against the building, they break the driver’s window. Police said they tried to save her life, but she was fatally injured.
The encounter between Young and the police was one of the a worrying series of fatal shootings of black adults and children by Ohio officers, and has tracked several episodes of police brutality against black people across the country in recent years.
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