COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Police shot and killed a teenage girl Tuesday afternoon in Columbus just as the verdict was being announced in the trial for the killing of George Floyd.
The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation was at the scene Tuesday night on the city’s southeast side, The Columbus Dispatch reported.
Officers had responded to an attempted stabbing call when police shot the girl at about 4:45 p.m., the newspaper reported. The 911 caller reported a female was trying to stab them before hanging up, according to the Dispatch.
The girl was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Nobody else was injured, the newspaper reported.
“This afternoon a young woman tragically lost her life,” Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther tweeted. “We do not know all of the details. There is body-worn camera footage of the incident. We are working to review it as soon as possible.”
Police who answered the department’s phone and officers on scene were not immediately able to provide details to The Associated Press.
A crowd had gathered Tuesday night at the scene on Legion Lane, which police had partially blocked off to traffic. Others gathered at the city’s police headquarters to protest, a week after officers pepper-sprayed a group that tried to enter the headquarters over the police killing of a man who had a gun in a hospital emergency room.
The shooting happened about 25 minutes before a judge read the verdict convicting former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin of murder and manslaughter in the killing of Floyd.
Kimberly Shepherd, 50, who has lived in the neighborhood for 17 years, said she knew the victim.
“The neighborhood has definitely went through its changes, but nothing like this,” Shepherd said of the shooting. “But this is the worst thing that has ever happened out here and unfortunately it is at the hands of police.”
Shepherd and her neighbor Jayme Jones, 51, had celebrated the guilty verdict of Chauvin. But things changed quickly, she said.
“We were happy about the verdict. But you couldn’t even enjoy that,” Shepherd said. “Because as you’re getting one phone call that he was guilty, I’m getting the next phone call that this is happening in my neighborhood.”