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Nancy Solomon: Hi, everybody, I'm Nancy Solomon in this week for Tanzina Vega. In the 24 hours following the guilty verdict in the Derrick Chauvin trial, at least six people were killed by police, that's according to a report by the Associated Press. The first documented case was that of Ma’Khia Bryant, a Black teenager in Columbus, Ohio, who was fatally shot minutes before the judge read the Chauvin verdict publicly.

Protesters in Columbus took to the streets instantly to demand accountability and while many questions remain about this case, in particular, it's clear that the community still reeling from the police shootings of Casey Goodson Jr and Andre Hill are on edge. For more on this, I'm joined by Farnoush Amiri, a reporter for The Associated Press, and The Report for America Statehouse Initiative. Farnoush, welcome back to The Takeaway.

Farnoush Amiri: Thanks for having me.

Nancy Solomon: Let's start with Ma’Khia Bryant. You've listened to the 911 call, you watched the body and dashcam footage, what do we know about what led to this fatal encounter?

Farnoush Amiri: The information that we have starts minutes before the officers show up to the foster home where Ma’Khia Bryant and her sister were living at and where the 911 call was made. The majority of the events happened within 11 seconds of the officer showing up. Officer Nicholas Reardon of the Columbus Division of Police, is seen on his body camera getting out of the vehicle and there's a group of people gathered on the driveway of the home and in less than seconds you see 16-year-old Ma'khia Bryant lunging towards another girl who falls to the ground before she moves on to another girl who's pushed up against a car. In those 11 seconds, those two things happen and officer Reardon shoots Ma’Khia Bryant in the chest four times, and she falls to the ground.

Nancy Solomon: What's still unclear remains a question about what happened?

Farnoush Amiri: There's a lot unclear. There's a lot, who called 911? Ma’Khia Bryant's family tells us that she did, that she and her sister were at home when these two girls showed up, antagonizing them, and threatening them and their foster mom. That still remains extremely unclear because if it was Ma’Khia who called 911 or her sister, and that was their foster home, Ohio has stand-your-ground laws so that could be a potential legal defense that her family or any sort of legal team could use.

Nancy Solomon: You were at the scene shortly after all this happened. What can you tell us about how the police are handling things and how the community is responding?

Farnoush Amiri: The press and the majority of the public did not know the name of the victim or the circumstances of what happened until close to midnight the night of the shooting. Columbus police told reporters to meet them downtown at their headquarters, where they within five hours of the shooting showed a glimpse of the body camera footage that officer Reardon had taken.

That was really striking because Columbus police has only had body cameras since 2016, but even with that they put it out routinely and quickly in comparison to other major city police departments, but this within five hours it was clear that there was a defense that they had, they wanted to lower tensions, they knew that there would be protests, they had already been preparing for protests in case the children trial would have gone a different way.

The city and the police department were under immense scrutiny so they and I'm assuming the mayor and the police chief watched the video and what they saw was a defense for officer Reardon. In their view and their eyes, he potentially saved the life of the second girl who they say that was about to be stabbed.

Nancy Solomon: Ma’Khia Bryant isn't the only person who has been killed by police in and around Columbus, Ohio in recent months. There were two other fatal police shootings back in December, tell us about those.

Farnoush Amiri: On December 3rd, 23-year-old Casey Goodson Jr was fatally shot by a Franklin County Sheriff's deputy. That case is quite different than the other ones because the County Sheriff's Department does not have body cameras. Immediately after that shooting, the county approved money to get those body cameras but without that, there is only the side of the family and the side of the officer about what happened. That case was a really complicated one because it appears that the deputy was not on duty with either the sheriff's office according to what they say or the US Marshal task force that he was with when he saw Casey and he said that Casey waved a gun at him while driving by.

That case remains under federal investigation. We still don't have any idea where that's going to go. Shortly after, two to three weeks later, 47-year-old Andre Hill was shot by a Columbus police officer while walking out of a garage of a friend's house that he was staying at after a 911 call was made about someone turning their car on and off. The officer, in that case, says that he thought Hill was holding a gun. It turned out he was holding a cell phone.

Nancy Solomon: That officer Adam Coy has been charged with murder, where does that case stand at this point?

Farnoush Amiri: He's been charged with murder so the next hearing in the case, which is mostly a procedural hearing is Wednesday, actually and that's when we'll find out where the trial goes from here or whether what it will be the dates set up and it's kind of what happens next type of thing.

Nancy Solomon: What are the people in Columbus calling for? Are they asking for specific reforms at this point?

Farnoush Amiri: I think the majority of activists and advocates in this field and in the city believe that there is just no reforming police at this point. They don't feel that Columbus Police represent them or live within their communities or understand the nuances of this community and specifically with Ma’Khia Bryant. She was in foster care and that on itself is a very specific case of situations going on within this community within young people that advocates believe police don't get and police aren't cognizant of. I think the city has reached a boiling point from what advocates and activists tell me. I don't know what really could change for them systematically that would be enough or quick enough at this point.

Nancy Solomon: With the state level in the wake of the killing of George Floyd last year, Governor Mike Dewine, a Republican talked about police reform. He spoke about it again this weekend after the shooting of Ma’Khia Bryant. Is there support for this in the statehouse with both controlled by the republicans both the house in the state senate? What's going on at the state level?

Farnoush Amiri: Governor Mike Dewine within days of George Floyd's killing, him and the Attorney General who is also a Republican, got up and issued plans for sweeping police reform as far as creating a police oversight board, professionalizing police, having a certification system, and kind of just like similar to medical boards where there can be complaints on a statewide basis. What Governor Dewine really wanted and what he's continued to highlight is he wants to make sure that there's a stop to the fact that an officer can do whether it's criminally or just wrongdoing negligence in his job and be able to go from one department to another.

That's something that Governor Mike Dewine has made really clear. What happened shortly after those reforms were introduced last year is kind of nothing. The Senate and the House are controlled by Republicans. It was a pandemic, there was a federal bribery investigation that happened. There was a lot that was happening and police reform got put on the back burner and I don't know if it's the top priority for Republicans who control both chambers.

Nancy Solomon: Okay. Farnoush Amiri is a reporter for The Associated Press and The Report for America Statehouse Initiative. Thanks Farnoush.

Farnoush Amiri: Thank you.

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