The family of Ma’Khia Bryant is concerned about how thorough the Bureau of Criminal Investigations report into her death.
This week, the BCI referred its investigation into the Franklin County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, according to Attorney General Dave Yost.
After receiving a call, officers were dispatched to Bryant’s home. In the call, somebody claimed that a group of teenagers had threatened her. At the time, Bryant lived in a foster home on Legion Lane. She had gotten into an altercation with another youth at the home.
Bryant’s foster parent, Angela Moore, says the altercation was over housekeeping.
“It was over keeping the house clean,” Moore said at the time. “The older one told them to clean up the house because ‘Mom doesn’t like the house dirty,'” Moore recalled being told after she arrived home from work. “So that’s how it all started.”
In the video, Bryant is seen with an object in her right hand that she raises toward a second person before officer Nick Reardon fires four times.
The shooting occurred about 30 minutes before a guilty verdict was announced in the killing of George Floyd.
Bryant’s grandmother, sister, and attorney spoke to reporters outside of Columbus City Hall this week. Jeanene Hammonds, Bryant’s grandmother, said police did not interview her despite being at the scene.
“It was not thorough enough for me because they did not interview me that night,” Hammonds said.
“After the investigation is completed, the investigative report is provided to the prosecutor’s office and, with the prosecutor’s approval, to the requesting agency,” the bureau said in a statement. “Those entities may then use the investigation to determine the appropriateness of the officer’s actions.”
Black women amount to 20% (48 total) of the 247 women fatally shot by the police and 28% of unarmed killings since 2015, according to a 2020 Washington Post report.
