Body camera footage shows a Black man emerging from a garage and holding up a cellphone in his left hand seconds before he is fatally shot by a Columbus police officer.
About six seconds pass between the time Andre Hill, 47, is visible in the video and when the officer fires his weapon. There is no audio because the officer had not activated the body camera but an automatic “look back” feature captured the shooting early on Tuesday.
Without audio it is unclear whether the officer, identified as Adam Coy, yells any commands at Hill, whose right hand is not visible in the video. Authorities say no weapon was recovered from the scene. The city has said Hill was visiting someone at the time.
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Hill lay on the garage floor for several minutes without any officer on the scene coming to his aid. That violated policy requiring officers to help the injured, said the Columbus mayor, Andrew Ginther, on Wednesday, calling for Coy to be fired as a result.
Coy also violated departmental policies requiring his camera’s full video and audio functions to have been activated, Ginther said.
Columbus police values including integrity, compassion and accountability “were absent and not on display while Mr Hill lay dying”, said Ginther, a Democrat.
After Coy activates the audio he is heard using an expletive as he yells at Hill, now lying on the garage floor, to put his “hands off to the side! Hands out to the side now!”
A few seconds later Coy yells at Hill: “Roll to your stomach now,” and then, “Get your hand up from underneath you, now!”
Coy then asks a dispatcher: “We got a medic coming” and yells, “Don’t move, dude!” to Hill as he lies on his side groaning.
Hill died less than an hour later at a hospital.
Ginther and the police chief, Thomas Quinlan, have expressed anger that Coy did not activate his body camera beforehand. The 60-second look-back feature caught the shooting.
Officers must activate their body cameras as soon as they are dispatched to a major incident such as a shooting, robbery or burglary, under departmental policy.
Beyond that officers must turn the cameras on “at the start of an enforcement action or at the first reasonable opportunity to do so”, according to the policy.
Although Coy was dispatched on a non-emergency call, it became an enforcement action when the officer interacted with Hill because that was separate from the original call, said police department spokesperson James Fuqua.
“Therefore the camera by policy should have been activated,” he said.
Coy, a 17-year member of the force, was relieved of duty, ordered to turn in his gun and badge, and stripped of police powers pending the outcome of investigations. By union contract the officer will still be paid.
Relieving an officer of duty is common in Columbus after a shooting.
“In this case the chief of police directly observed what he believes to be potential critical misconduct and is taking an intervening action of relief of duty until a disciplinary investigation can be completed,” said Glenn McEntyre, a spokesperson for the city department of public safety, which oversees the police.
Ned Pettus Jr, the city public safety director, on Wednesday promised “a fair, impartial hearing” for Coy.
Officers responded to a neighbor’s non-emergency call at 1.26am about a car in front of his house that had been running, then shut off, then turned back on, according to a copy of the call released on Wednesday. Ginther said it was unclear if that car had anything to do with Hill.
The Republican attorney general, Dave Yost, on Wednesday promised a “complete, independent and expert investigation” of the shooting.
“What we have now is an incomplete record. We must allow the record to be completed and the evidence to be gathered,” Yost said. “Only the truth – the whole truth and nothing else – will result in justice.”
In May the killing of George Floyd by a white police officer set off waves of protests across the US and around the world.
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