*(CNN) — A police officer in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio, was indicted by a grand jury on murder charges Tuesday in last year’s killing of a pregnant woman who was suspected of shoplifting, according to the Montgomery County prosecutor’s office.
Ta’Kiya Young, 21, was fatally shot inside her vehicle by an officer in the parking lot of a Kroger grocery store in Blendon Township on August 24, 2023. Her unborn child did not survive.
Blendon Township Police Officer Connor Grubb faces four counts of murder, four counts of felonious assault and two counts of involuntary manslaughter as a result of a grand jury indictment, according to a statement from the office of Prosecuting Attorney Mat Heck Jr.
“While it is concerning that an officer sworn to uphold the law has been indicted for homicide charges, no one is above the law,” the prosecuting attorney said.
Redacted body-camera footage and surveillance video of the shooting released in the weeks afterward showed that two officers had confronted her in her vehicle about accusations of shoplifting. When the car began to move in the direction of one officer, who was standing in front of the vehicle, he fired a single shot into her windshield, killing her, the video shows.
Young family attorney Sean Walton praised the indictment in a statement and said August 1 would have been Young’s 22nd birthday.
“Today marks a solemn victory in the pursuit of justice for Ta’Kiya Young and her unborn daughter, whose lives were tragically and unjustly taken at the hands of Blendon Township Police Officer Connor Grubb,” Walton said in a statement.
“The actions that led to the death of Ta’Kiya — the unnecessary aggression, the chilling commands that amounted to ‘comply or die’ — were there for us all to witness in dreadful clarity. Ta’Kiya’s life and that of her daughter were extinguished in an act of brutality, becoming yet another symbol of the urgent need for reform in police conduct and accountability.”
The charges come amid a heightened scrutiny of police violence against Black people in the US. In general, officers are rarely charged in such cases, and convictions are rarer still.
Shortly after the shooting, police described the two officers as victims of assault and so withheld their identities and blurred their faces on the video. In a video posted to Facebook on Tuesday, Blendon Township Police Chief John Belford said the department is now required by law to take disciplinary steps against Grubb.
“I want to be very clear: We’re not passing any judgement on whether Officer Grubb acted properly. We haven’t seen the evidence,” he said. “However, since people who have been indicted may not legally possess a firearm, the indictment against him leaves us with no choice but to legally begin the disciplinary process.”
Brian Steel, executive vice president of the Fraternal Order of Police Capital City Lodge #9, the local police union, said in a statement Tuesday he was “deeply disappointed” in the decision to indict Grubb.
“Like all law enforcement officers, Officer Grubb had to make a split-second decision, a reality all too familiar for those who serve to protect our communities,” Steel said. “These decisions are made under extreme pressure and often in life-threatening situations, with the primary goal of safeguarding the general public’s and their own lives.”
Grubb’s arraignment has been scheduled for Wednesday at 1 p.m.
Video shows how the shooting occurred
The police shooting took place on a Thursday evening in the parking lot outside Kroger.
Surveillance footage from inside the store shows Young walking around the store and placing several bottles of liquor into her handbag. She stood in line at the cash register before she and two other women left, the video shows.
Alarms went off as the women exited the store and went to a vehicle, police said. A grocery store employee notified officers that a woman who had stolen bottles of alcohol was in a car parked outside the store, police said.
The police body-camera video shows an officer approaching Young’s driver-side window and repeatedly telling her to get out of the car. A second officer, who was also wearing a body camera, then stepped in front of the vehicle.
“They said you stole something … get out of the car,” the officer at the window said.
“I didn’t steal sh*t,” Young responded, and the two argued back and forth with the window slightly ajar.
“Get out of the f**king car,” the officer standing in front of the car said. He drew his gun and braced his left hand on the hood of the car, the video shows.
At one point, Young said, “You gonna shoot me?”
Young can then be seen turning the wheel of the car as the officer next to her window continues to urge her to exit the vehicle. “Get out of the f**king car,” the officer in front of the car repeated.
The vehicle began to slowly move forward, the video shows. After a few seconds, the officer standing in front of the vehicle fired once through the windshield.
After the shot, the officers ran alongside the car yelling at the driver to stop, and the car rolled onto a sidewalk between two brick columns and into a building. The officers called for backup and broke the window to reach the driver, who appeared to be slumped over to one side.
An autopsy determined she died of a gunshot wound to the heart. Her fetus was estimated to be at 25 to 28 weeks gestation, according to the Franklin County Coroner’s Office.
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