Who Is Ma'Khia Bryant?
By: KDKA-TV News Staff
COLUMBUS, OHIO (KDKA/AP) -- Who is Ma'Khia Bryant?
- Ma'Khia Bryant, a 16-year-old Black girl, was shot and killed in Columbus, Ohio on Tuesday at about 4:45 p.m. just before the verdict was being announced in the trial for the killing of George Floyd.
- Franklin County Children Services said in a release that the 16-year-old was under the care of the agency at the time of her death.
- According to body camera footage by Columbus police, a clip begins with the officer getting out of his car at a house where police had been dispatched after someone called 911 saying they were being physically threatened, Interim Police Chief Michael Woods said. The officer takes a few steps toward a group of people in the driveway when Bryant starts swinging a knife wildly at another girl or woman, who falls backward. The officer shouts several times to get down. Bryant then charges at another girl or woman, who is pinned against a car. From a few feet away, with people on either side of him, the officer fires four shots. Bryant was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
- Paula Bryant, Ma'Khia's mother, told WBNS that she is, "Very upset, I'm hurt. I want answers." She told WBNS that she last saw Ma'Khia on Thursday. "We hugged each other. She said, 'Mommy, I made honor roll.' She said, 'Mommy, I'm looking forward to coming home.'"
- The shooting took place less than 5 miles from where the funeral for Andre Hill, who was killed by another Columbus police officer in December, was held earlier this year. Less than three weeks before Hill was killed, a Franklin County Sheriff's deputy fatally shot 23-year-old Casey Goodson Jr. in Columbus.
- Ohio's Bureau of Criminal Investigation is now reviewing the killing following an agreement with the city last summer for all police shootings to be handled by the independent investigators under Attorney General Dave Yost's office.
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