Blendon Township police chief should blame his officer for Ta'Kiya Young's death. Not her.
Terry Gilbert, a civil rights attorney, is a founding partner of Friedman, Gilbert, and Gerhardstein with offices in Cleveland and Cincinnati.
Once again, in Ohio, a reckless and preventable police shooting shocked and outraged a family and the community. This time a 21-year-old pregnant black woman, Ta’Kiya Young, was gunned down on August 24 after two white police officers confronted her as she sat in her vehicle at a shopping center parking lot in Blendon Township near Columbus.
Luckily, the incident was captured on video, through bodycams.
The police chief, in a statement, focused not on the police misconduct but the reaction of Ta’Kiya for not exiting her vehicle when repeatedly and angrily shouting orders to comply.
The unnamed shooting officer claimed she “tried” to run him over.
In police jargon that means moving the car while the cop stupidly puts himself in front of it – with his gun drawn.
The police chief seems to blame Ta’Kiya, for disobeying orders to get out of the vehicle, without mentioning the blatant misconduct of the cop who fired a shot into the windshield.
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These kinds of official responses are all too frequent: A scripted narrative of skewed facts and calling out the victim for causing police to shoot, usually African Americans who resist police commands for trivial offenses and routine traffic stops.
In the moment of confusion, justified fear, and mistrust of police, compliance might be difficult as the realization of impending arrest or worse, sets in.
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These scenarios are fueled by a long history of racially charged and aggressive policing, and a failure to adopt rational de-escalation training methods.
Authorities attempt to placate the public by assuring a thorough and unbiased investigation, yet the officer is not arrested, nor disciplined, for what appears to be a crime.
The officer is placed on paid leave, as months go by without any information being released. Assurances are made that the case will be presented to a grand jury, but that process is controlled by either a local prosecutor or a “special” prosecutor employed by the attorney general, who have spent their careers working closely with police.
Their hope is that citizens will be patient and not take to the streets, while the interest of the media wanes over time. And when the secret grand clears the cop, there is no announcement of what evidence was presented.
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Accountability is hard to achieve, but police shootings can be prevented if training is followed
Ohio has experienced a troubling series of fatal shootings of Black people as well as numerous incidents of police brutality.
After the George Floyd murder in 2020, our governor made promises to create statewide mandatory policies and ongoing police training, but with no action to date.
Police shootings in Ohio: Columbus police shootings most frequently involve Black males, data since 2012 shows
Efforts to hold police accountable are often given lip service, without any teeth.
According to the Police Violence Report, there were 1,200 killings by police across the country in 2022, where a substantial number of these shootings could have been prevented if specific policies and training were followed.
Clearly, if the cop who killed Ta’Kiya had followed generally accepted protocols, she would be alive today and looking forward to her new child.
As a lawyer who represents victims of police misconduct, our clients have faced multiple layers of legal roadblocks with unfair outcomes in favor of the police.
Police accountability is hard to achieve with embedded laws, customs, and outdated procedures like qualified immunity, along with a culture which supports unique deference to police over the average citizen.
The Blendon Township police department and the police involved need to be held accountable with an outcome that will provide equal justice for Ta’Kiya’s family.
Terry Gilbert, a civil rights attorney, is a founding partner of Friedman, Gilbert, and Gerhardstein with offices in Cleveland and Cincinnati.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Police shoot pregnant woman in Ohio. Where's the accountability?
