Columbus police officer who fatally shot Ma’Khia Bryant identified

Authorities have identified the Columbus police officer who shot and killed 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant on Tuesday (April 20).

Columbus police officer identified

Authorities named Columbus police officer Nicholas Reardon as the gunman responsible for the teen’s death. He has been on the force less than two years, according to USA Today.

Reardon reportedly started working with the Columbus Police Department back in 2019. He has been placed on leave pending an investigation into the fatal incident.

Ma’Khia Bryant was reportedly in need of help

While many awaited the verdict in Derek Chauvin’s murder trial for the death of George Floyd, Bryant found herself in need of immediate assistance from cops.

According to the teen’s aunt Hazel Bryant, she had gotten into a physical altercation with a group of young women at her foster home and grabbed a knife to defend herself.

Mah’Khia called 911 twice to report that a girl was trying to stab her. Reardon was one of the few officers who responded to the scene.

Based on recently released body cam footage of the encounter, Reardon approached the group of people who were standing by a driveway.

Bryant struck one of the individuals, who fell to the ground. When the teen wielded her knife at another girl, the officer immediately fired, and she was shot.

A crowd quickly gathered around the teen and took their frustration out on officers. “Why’d you shoot her?” one bystander said in the video. “You didn’t have to shoot her.”

Medics were called, and Bryant was transported to a local hospital in critical condition. She was later pronounced dead.

Though Bryant’s aunt maintains that her niece dropped the steak knife before she was shot, an investigation into the shooting remains active.

“I understand the outrage and emotion around this incident,” Columbus Public Safety Director Ned Pettus Jr said during a recent press conference. “A teenage girl is dead, and she’s dead at the hands of a police officer. Under any circumstances, that is a horrendous tragedy. But the video shows that there is more to this. It requires us to pause and take a close look at the sequence of events and, though it’s not easy, wait for the facts as determined by an independent investigation.”

The Bureau of Criminal Investigation has since opened an independent investigation into the shooting.