A Columbus Ohio Police Officer Fatally Shot An Unarmed Man Seconds After Encountering Him

An Ohio police officer has been stripped of his badge and gun after killing an unarmed man, Andre Maurice Hill.

Andre Maurice Hill fatally shot by police

Columbus police officer Adam Coy killed Andre Maurice Hill, 47, who was walking toward the officer with a cell phone in his left hand and his right hand not visible when Coy opened fire, authorities said.

The officer had been responding to a non-emergency disturbance call from a neighbor, according to authorities.

The fatal shooting is the latest involving law enforcement in Columbus, where less than three weeks ago another Black man, Casey Goodson Jr., was fatally shot by a Franklin County sheriff’s deputy.

The incident was partially captured on video.

Coy, 44, did not activate his body camera before the incident, and dash cameras on the officers’ cruiser were also not activated, city officials said. Because of an automatic “look back” feature on the body camera, the shooting was captured on video but without audio, according to Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther and the city’s department of public safety.

Body camera footage from immediately after the shooting indicated “a delay in rendering of first-aid to the man,” the public safety department said in a news release.

Police said officers were responding to a neighbor’s non-emergency call at 1:37 a.m. about a man sitting in a vehicle for a long time, repeatedly turning the vehicle on and off. Because it was a non-emergency call, the cruiser dash cam wasn’t activated.

Upon arrival, officers found an opened garage door and a man inside.

In the body camera video, “the man walked toward the officer with a cellphone in his left hand,” police said. “His right hand was not visible.”

Coy immediately fired and hit Hill, who died just under an hour later at a local hospital. No weapon recovered at the scene, police said.

Hill was visiting someone at the home at the time, police said.

History of excessive force

According to a report by The Columbus Dispatch, Coy has a history of misconduct and excessive force. Coy had nine complaints filed against him in 2003, four of those coming in a one-month period. He received written counseling, The Dispatch reported at the time.

In 2012, the city paid $45,000 to a man who Coy had stopped for drunken driving one morning at 3 a.m.

According to reports from The Columbus Dispatch, a cruiser camera showed Coy “banging the driver’s head into the hood four times during the arrest.” His actions were deemed “excessive for the situation.”

In addition to the city’s settlement with the driver for $45,000, Coy was suspended for 160 hours.

Relieved of duty

Coy was relieved of duty and ordered to turn in his gun and badge pending the outcome of investigation into the shooting. By union contract, Coy will still be paid.

The state’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation is leading the investigation into Andre Maurice Hill’s shooting, which is city policy for shootings involving Columbus police.