The killing of an unarmed Black man shot in bed by an Ohio police officer this week was “utterly senseless,” a lawyer for the man’s family said Thursday, calling for accountability and immediate reform amid a spate of police shootings in Columbus, the state capital.
Officers had entered the apartment around 2:30 a.m. with a police dog to serve Lewis arrest warrants on charges of domestic violence, assault and improper handling of a firearm, Sgt. Joe Albert of Columbus police said.
In the footage, officers can be heard telling Lewis to crawl out of the room after he was shot. Lewis was handcuffed on the bed and died after being taken to a hospital. Rex Elliott, the lawyer representing Lewis’s family, told reporters Thursday that the young man was “treated like an animal.”
The killing is likely to inflame the debate over police brutality more than two years after the murder of George Floyd set off a wave of demonstrations.
In particular, the use of nighttime raids by police has had deadly consequences. This week’s shooting in Ohio comes months after police in Minneapolis killed Amir Locke during a no-knock raid, confronting him as he slept on his couch and a gun was seen in his hand. In March 2020, Breonna Taylor was shot and killed in Louisville after police burst into an apartment while searching for someone else in a drug probe.
City officials, while expressing sympathy for Lewis’s family, said they were awaiting the results of a probe being conducted by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigations.
Andrew Ginther, the mayor of Columbus, said Thursday that he joined Lewis’s family in its grief and called for peace. He described Lewis’s death as “tragic” and said the city was committed to “full transparency,” but he cautioned that a thorough accounting of what had occurred would take time.
Columbus Police Chief Elaine Bryant, who took the job last year with a mandate to reform a department under scrutiny for previous shootings, also expressed support for the family.
“Donovan Lewis lost his life. As a parent, you know, I sympathize, and I grieve with his mother,” Bryant said during a Tuesday news conference. “I grieve with our community, but we’re going to allow this investigation to take place.”
A spokesman for the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigations confirmed that the agency was reviewing the shooting but declined to comment further. The officer who shot Lewis was Ricky Anderson, a 30-year member of the force who is assigned to the canine unit. Anderson has been placed on paid administrative leave per department policy, Albert said.
Mark Collins and Kaitlyn Stephens, the lawyers representing Anderson, expressed sympathy for Lewis’s family in a statement. Police officers “are forced to make split-second decisions” when faced with “volatile encounters in dangerous situations,” they said. When analyzing police shootings, they added, “we must look to the totality of the circumstances.”
Lewis’s killing was the third police shooting in the city in the past week, according to the Columbus Urban League, a nonprofit community organization that seeks to empower Black Americans.
Elliott, the attorney representing the Lewis family, described the officer’s actions as reckless and inexcusable during a news conference Thursday. He was accompanied by Lewis’s parents, siblings, grandmother and aunt. Relatives wept as Elliott replayed the footage of the shooting.
“While we support the investigation announced Tuesday by Police Chief Bryant, there’s also no question that the video tells us all, every single one of us, exactly what happened in the early morning hours of August 30,” Elliott said.
There was “no justification” for police “to shoot an unarmed man trying to get out of bed” as officers were instructing him to do, Elliott said.
In the video, officers knock on the apartment door multiple times and identify themselves before two men come out and are handcuffed. Police then stand at the doorway with guns pointed and loudly announce that they will send in a dog.
“Columbus police. If you are inside, make yourself known,” one officer says. Off camera, a man can be heard saying, “They are sleeping.” The officer repeats: “Come on out. Come out now.”
A police dog enters the apartment and begins barking. Officers then follow the dog toward the room where Lewis was sleeping and open the door. A light illuminates Lewis starting to sit up in bed, and Anderson instantly fires. As Lewis writhes and moans, he is told to “crawl” out of the room and to stop resisting arrest. He is shown being handcuffed on the bed.
The police chief said that Lewis may have had a vape pen or electronic cigarette in his hand when he was shot, the Columbus Dispatch reported. Such an object is not visible in Lewis’s hand from the perspective of the body-cam footage, but it is later seen on the bed.
“Police shot and killed Donovan Lewis while he was in one of the most vulnerable places a person can be — bed. As the investigation unfolds, some may point to the fact that the police were attempting to execute a warrant when they shot Mr. Lewis, as if to suggest that an alleged offense warrants immediate execution,” Kelly Sampson, director of racial justice at the anti-gun-violence organization Brady, said in a statement.
Elliott questioned why police chose to execute the warrant in the middle of the night.
“I think all of us in this room probably had parents tell us nothing good happens at 2 o’clock in the morning,” the lawyer said. “The explanation by Chief Bryant that, ‘Well, we do that because we have to be sure that they’re at home,’ is nonsense. The reality is that felony warrants are executed every day in daylight hours.”
The killing is the latest example of an unarmed Black American being shot by police. Black Americans are 2.5 times more likely to be killed by police than White Americans, according to a 2019 study by Northwestern University. Numbers are even starker in Ohio, where Black people are 4.5 times more likely to be killed by police than White people.
In December 2020, Andre Hill, a 47-year-old unarmed Black man, was shot four times by a Columbus officer while leaving a friend’s house. His family received a $10 million settlement from the city. Last year, an officer fatally shot Ma’Khia Bryant, a Black 16-year-0ld, outside her home. That officer was cleared of criminal wrongdoing after an investigation.
Columbus officials announced soon after, in September 2021, that the Department of Justice had accepted the city’s request that it review the police agency. The investigation includes evaluating policies, as well as officer training and recruitment, the city said in a statement.
The Columbus Urban League called for a community forum Saturday in the wake of Lewis’s killing.
“Yesterday’s shooting evokes painful, conflicting responses. We understand that serving a felony warrant creates a highly volatile and dangerous situation. And yet the body-camera video is as gut-wrenching as is the fact that another Black man lost his life,” Stephanie Hightower, the group’s president, said in a statement. “No matter the ultimate conclusion, our community deserves an independent, thorough and transparent investigation by all appropriate entities.”
Lewis was “a typical 20-year-old kid” with a loving family and many friends, Elliott told reporters Thursday. He had “challenges in life, but he was overall a very good person and loved very much by the people behind me and others,” the lawyer said. He said family members were not yet ready to speak publicly.
Elliott called for accountability and systemic change.
“As a city, as a community, as human beings, we should be outraged at the events of Tuesday morning, and every one of us should be demanding immediate reform,” Elliott said. “So not even one more life — and certainly not one more young life — is taken like this.”
