Blendon Township police shooting investigation done, sent to Montgomery County prosecutors
The case of a Blendon Township police officer who shot and killed Ta'Kiya Young and her unborn baby in August in a Kroger parking lot is being turned over to Montgomery County prosecutors to present to a Franklin County grand jury for possible indictment.
The case made national headlines and sparked local outcry after a Blendon Township officer shot Young, a 21-year-old pregnant woman, on Aug. 24 through her car windshield after she drove forward, hitting him, during a confrontation over shoplifting allegations in the parking lot of a Kroger store at 5991 S. Sunbury Road.
The officer has not been identified by the Blendon Township Police Department, but Young's family and their attorney have identified the officer who shot Young as Connor Grubb.
The Ohio Attorney General's Bureau of Criminal Investigation completed its investigation into the shooting and handed the information over to Franklin County Prosecutor Gary Tyack's Office in December.
Tyack's office has sent the case in a swap of officer shooting cases to Montgomery County Prosecutor Mathias Heck Jr.'s Office. Attorneys in Heck's office, Jennifer Buschur and Richard Glennon, will present the Blendon Township case to a Franklin County grand jury, and attorneys from Tyack's office will present a shooting case there to a Montgomery County grand jury.
Buschur told The Dispatch on Friday that they received information over the holidays about the Blendon Township shooting and are now reviewing it. She said they hope to present the evidence to a grand jury within the next two months.
A Franklin County grand jury will decide whether to charge Grubb for his actions. If jurors return an indictment, Buschur and Glennon will prosecute the case.
Franklin County First Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Janet Grubb, who oversees the office's criminal division and has no relation to the Blendon police officer, said swaps like this are standard procedure in Ohio.
In exchange, the Franklin County office is taking on handling the case of a couple fatally shot on Aug. 2 by Ohio Highway Patrol troopers during a multi-hour standoff the patrol alleged involved a hostage.
Multiple law enforcement agencies say Elaine Helman, 51, and her husband Rodney Helman, 54, stole a tractor-trailer cab, took the driver hostage and led officers on a chase across multiple counties. The incident began in Madison County but ended on Interstate 70 westbound near the Dayton International Airport Access Road in the Vandalia area.
After the couple stopped in Montgomery County, the highway patrol said troopers tried to negotiate for about four hours with the couple. The patrol said that during an attempt to rescue the driver, one of the Helmans shot at troopers, who returned fire.
Franklin County Assistant Prosecuting Attorneys Dan Cable and Sheryl Prichard, who prosecuted ex-Columbus police officer Andrew Mitchell's murder case, have been assigned the Montgomery County case.
Montgomery prosecutor Heck had announced in 2020 that his office would no longer handle officer-involved shootings and always use outside attorneys.
Grubb said Tyack's office does not have a set policy about officer-involved cases, but decides on a case-by-case basis. Since these two shootings happened around the same time, the swap made sense, she said.
Grubb said the Franklin County office is overwhelmed with cases, including about 250 untried homicides.
The Blendon Township shooting
On the day of the fatal shooting in Blendon Township, two officers were already in the Kroger parking lot helping someone locked out of their car when a Kroger employee told them Young stole multiple bottles of liquor from the store, the department has said.
Body camera footage shows one officer stood next to the driver's side window, speaking with Young, while Connor Grubb pulled his gun and stood in front of the vehicle. The officers told Young to get out of the car multiple times.
The video shows Young turned the steering wheel and the car slowly moved forward, hitting Grubb, who fired one shot that went through the front windshield and struck Young. Her car continued forward until striking the exterior of the Kroger store.
Officers broke the driver's window and rendered aid until paramedics arrived, as did a doctor who happened to be at the store. Young was taken to Mount Carmel St. Ann's hospital, where she and her unborn baby were pronounced dead.
jlaird@dispatch.com
@LairdWrites
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Blendon Township police shooting investigation sent to prosecutors
