Colon Police Division Inserted the video of the body cam Tuesday night shows the deadly shooting of 20-year-old Donovan Lewis, who was killed while still in bed and possibly holding a vaporizer pen.
Authorities say at around 2:28 am Tuesday, officers attempted to serve a felony arrest warrant in an apartment on Sullivant Avenue. Camera footage shows Lewis was shot dead seconds after multiple officers entered his second-floor apartment and less than a second after officers opened his bedroom door. . Lewis had one hand raised when Officer Ricky Anderson, who had a K-9, opened fire. The footage shows officers handcuffing an injured Lewis before rescuing them.
Lewis was pronounced dead at a local hospital around 3:19 am and no weapons were found in the apartment.
“There was, like, a vaporizer pen that was found on the bed right next to him,” Columbus chief Elaine Bryant said at a news conference Tuesday. “Donovan Lewis lost his life. As a father, you know, I sympathize and cry with his mother. As a community, I feel sorry for our community, but we will allow this investigation to take place. “
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Court records show that officers were attempting to serve an arrest warrant for improper handling of a firearm, assault and domestic violence. Bryant said Anderson, who has been on the force for 30 years and is in the dog unit, has been put on leave pending investigation into the shooting.
The incident marks the latest example of the execution of a search warrant that has gone deadly. In February, Minneapolis police officers shot a 22-year-old to death Amir Locke inside an apartment moments after entering with an arrest warrant for a case that had nothing to do with him. In March 2020, Louisville Metropolitan Police officers shot dead breonna taylor while executing a similar walk-in search warrant in an investigation into the paramedic’s ex-boyfriend of 26 years.
Unlike the Locke and Taylor shootings, body camera footage moments before Lewis’s death shows officers knocking on a door for at least eight minutes and announcing themselves as law enforcement officers before two men open the door. The men were immediately arrested by the police as the Columbus Canine Unit began to leave the apartment.
Seconds later, a dog is seen barking in a back room, prompting Anderson to tie up the K-9 and open the door.
“We’ll send that dog,” an officer is heard saying just before Anderson opens the door. The light from another officer’s gun is seen shining on Lewis as another officer yells, “Hands!”
Less than a second later, Anderson shoots Lewis as he begins to sit on a bed in the back corner of the room. In the footage, Lewis can be seen raising his right hand towards the officers, while his left hand is still near the pillow.
After the shooting, the footage shows an officer repeatedly yelling “hands off” before asking Lewis to “crawl here” twice. Lewis, however, remains hunched over the bed. Eventually, the agents enter the room and tell the injured Lewis to put his hands behind his back before handcuffing him.
An officer is heard telling Lewis to “stop resisting”. Another video shows the man in handcuffs being led out of the apartment. Only then is Lewis seen receiving medical assistance.
“We are committed to full transparency, to share as much as possible as quickly as possible, and we are committed to holding officers accountable in the event of wrongdoing,” Bryant said Tuesday. “As a boss, it is my job to hold the officers accountable, but it is also my job to offer them support and provide it to them in the process.”
The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation has also opened an investigation into Lewis’s death, which is just the latest deadly police shooting of a black person in the state capital. Two years ago, a Columbus police officer shot a 23-year-old unarmed man to death. go hill in the garage of a house he was visiting. The same authorities shot a 16-year-old to death Makhia Bryant after he appeared to attack someone with a knife during a neighborhood brawl.
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