COLUMBUS, Ohio —
Ohio authorities on Friday released body-cam video showing police officers fatally shooting a pregnant 21-year-old Black woman in her car in what her family denounced as a “gross misuse of power and authority.”
Ta’Kiya Young of Columbus was pronounced dead shortly after the Aug. 24 shooting outside a grocery store in the Columbus suburb of Blendon Township. Her unborn daughter did not survive.
The video, which comes more than a week after her death, shows another officer at the driver’s side window repeatedly demanding that Young “get out of the car.”
The officer by her window tells Young that she has been accused of theft. She protests, and he repeats his demand that she get out of the car. She turns the steering wheel to her right and accelerates toward a second officer, who was in the car’s path. That officer fires through the windshield at Young; seconds later, her sedan drifts until it hits the grocery store’s brick wall.
Officers then break her window, which Blendon Township Police Chief John Belford said was to get Young out of the car and render medical aid, though video of the medical assistance was not provided.
Young’s family members were able to view the footage before its public release and released a statement Friday through their attorney, Sean Walton.
“Having viewed the footage in its entirety, it is undeniable that Ta’Kiya’s death was not only avoidable, but also a gross misuse of power and authority,” the statement said.
Walton called Young’s death avoidable and said the family was seeking a swift criminal indictment of the officers in the deaths of Young and her unborn daughter.
Walton had told the Associated Press on Thursday that the family was frustrated with delays in the public release of the body-cam video.
Belford said the delay resulted from a small staff trying to process the video and properly redact certain elements, such as the officers’ faces and badge numbers, in accordance with Ohio law.
The two officers’ names, ages and races were not immediately released. As is the standard in cases of police use of deadly force, the officers are on paid administrative leave while the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation examines the shooting.
Young was expected to give birth to a daughter in November. An online effort to pay her funeral expenses has raised nearly $7,000.
Young’s siblings, cousins, grandmother and father have rallied around her sons, 6-year-old Ja’Kobie and 3-year-old Ja’Kenlie, who don’t yet understand the magnitude of what had happened to their mother, Walton said.
“It’s a large family, and Ta’Kiya has been snatched away from them,” Walton said. “I think the entire family is still in shock.”
Family and friends held a private vigil a day after Young was killed, releasing balloons and lighting candles spelling out “RIP Kiya.”
Her grandmother, Nadine Young, described her granddaughter as a family-oriented prankster who was a loving older sister and mother.
“She was so excited to have this little girl,” Nadine Young said at a news conference Wednesday. “She has her two little boys, but she was so fired up to have this girl. She is going to be so missed.”
“I’m a mess because it’s just tragic,” she added, “but it should have never, ever, ever happened.”
