Ohio police release bodycam footage after officer fatally shoots pregnant Black woman
Police in Ohio have released bodycam footage showing an officer fatally shooting a pregnant Black woman, after she was suspected of shoplifting.
Ta'Kiya Young, 21, died on August 24 when she was shot while in her car outside a supermarket in Blendon Township, a suburb of Columbus.
The video shows the two officers speaking with Ms Young for about one minute before the shot is fired.
An officer is seen standing outside the car door and repeatedly telling her to "get out of the car".
"For what?" Ms Young can be heard responding twice, adding: "I'm not going to do that."
The officer seen in front of the car then puts his left hand on the bonnet and draws his gun with the other hand.
"Are you going to shoot me?" the young mother can be heard saying moments before a single shot is fired and the officer quickly moves out of the car's path.
Officers are then seen breaking her window after the car rolls into the brick wall near the entrance of the store.
Officers say they attempted to perform medical aid, but neither the mother nor her unborn child survived the shooting.
Police Chief John Belford said the officers had been at a supermarket on an unrelated matter when an employee told them people were trying to flee with stolen items.
The young mother had been due to give birth in November, her family told local media.
Ms Young already had two sons, aged six and three, and was said to have been "so excited" to give birth to her daughter.
“She stole something from the store,” her grandmother, Nadine Young, told a local newspaper.
“You didn’t have to shoot the woman, she would have eventually gotten out of the car. You didn’t have to kill her and the baby.”
Family and friends held a private vigil a day after Ms Young was killed, releasing balloons and lighting candles spelling out “RIP Kiya.”
An online effort to pay her funeral expenses has raised over $7,000 (around £5,000).
Ms Young’s father, grandmother and other relatives watched the bodycam video before its public release and released a statement on Friday through their attorney Sean Walton.
“It is undeniable that Ta’Kiya’s death was not only avoidable, but also a gross misuse of power and authority,” the statement read.
While viewing the video, the family felt “a lot of anger, a lot of frustration,” Mr Walton added.
“More than anything, there was ... a sense of just devastation, to know that this power system, these police officers, could stop her and so quickly take her life for no justifiable reason.”
The officer who shot Ms Young is on paid administrative leave while the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation examines the shooting, which is standard practice.
A police union official said calls to charge the officer before an investigation is complete are premature.
A second officer who was on the scene has returned to active duty. Their names, races and ranks have not been released.
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