On the same day that a Minneapolis jury found a former police officer guilty of the murder of George Floyd, a 16-year-old girl was shot and killed by an officer in Columbus, Ohio. She, like Floyd, was Black and both officers are white, and so an immediate connection was made between the two cases. Both are unspeakable tragedies, and it is especially heart-rending that a teenage girl died just when her life should have been starting. But what happened in Columbus was different from the incident at that now-infamous street corner in Minneapolis, and so it is important that the investigation proceed without a rush to judgment.
Ma’Khia Bryant was shot Tuesday afternoon by a Columbus police officer responding to a call for help at her foster home. Authorities quickly released body cam footage and the 911 calls, and they identified the officer as Nicholas Reardon. “We need a police officer here now,” a frantic caller tells 911, reporting that someone is “trying to stab us.” Video footage released by police authorities show a chaotic scene when police arrive. A group of young people are standing and arguing in the driveway and a person identified as Ma’Khia pushes or swings at a person who falls to the ground and then is kicked by an unidentified man. Ma’Khia — with a knife in her hand — then rushes toward a young woman in pink who is leaning on a car, and it appears that she pulls back her arm as if to stab her.
“Hey! Hey!” Reardon yelled as he pulled his gun, “Get down! Get down!” He fired four shots, and Ma’Khia fell to the ground. Asked by a bystander why he shot her, the officer said, “she came at her with a knife.” The young woman in pink is later heard saying “She came after me … so he got her.” The incident happened in a matter of mere seconds, and the second-guessing is inevitable: Why didn’t the officer just grab her? Or use a Taser? Or a baton? Or try talking to her?
Whether the officer had realistic alternatives — something many police experts doubt — will be examined in the independent investigation by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation. That probe will also need to address the what-ifs: What if the officer hadn’t fired his gun? Would there still have been the loss of life, not of Ma’Khia but of that young woman in pink? There are also deeper questions: Could different strategies of fostering public safety head off violent incidents such as this one before they happen?
Since the death of George Floyd last May, there have been other alarming incidents of Black lives lost at the hands of police, and they have underscored the need for policing reform. But it is unfair and dangerous, particularly for public officials who should know better, to jump to conclusions and paint every officer and every use of force with the same broad brush.