Of course, a verdict is not everything.
Less than an hour before Derek Chauvin was convicted of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a 16-year-old girl was shot dead by a police officer in Columbus, Ohio.
Ma'Khia Bryant was 16, according to her mother Paula. The girl's family, who were living with foster care, say they called the police around 4:30 p.m. Tuesday (10:30 p.m. KST) to say someone was threatening her with a knife. Within minutes of the arrival of the police patrol, Ma'Khia collapsed, shot four times in the chest. Taken to hospital, she was pronounced dead at 5:21 p.m.
At a press conference, the Acting Columbus Police Chief confirmed that a call was made around 4:30 p.m., without identifying the person who called.
“The information was as follows: A caller said women were there trying to stab them and get hold of them, dispatchers tried to get information about the weapons, but they couldn't do it.
The officers were dispatched at 4:36 pm and arrived at 4:44 pm, ”said Michael Woods.
Four bullets fired
He then broadcast the brief video captured by the pedestrian camera of the first police officer at the scene. It shows a group of people near a car in the outside driveway of a house. A stout teenage girl, dressed in gray, walks up to a young girl with what appears to be a knife. Then she heads for a second one, dressed in pink jogging pants and a sweatshirt. "Down," cries firmly, four times, the police officer, before shooting four times. Ma'Khia is thrown back against the car as the pink girl runs away.
“The city of Columbus has lost a 15-year-old girl.
We know, thanks to these images, that the officer acted to protect another young girl from our community, explained, during the same press conference, the mayor of Columbus Andrew Ginther.
“But a family is in mourning tonight and this 15-year-old will never come home,” he added.
"As we breathed a collective sigh of relief today, a community in Columbus felt the sting of yet another police shot," which "killed an unarmed 15-year-old black girl named Ma'Khia Bryant.
Another lost child!
George Floyd's family lawyer tweeted Ben Crump.
As we breathed a collective sigh of relief today, a community in Columbus felt the sting of another police shooting as @ColumbusPolice killed an unarmed 15yo Black girl named Makiyah Bryant.
Another child lost!
Another hashtag.
✊🏾🙏🏾 # JusticeForMakiyahBryant https://t.co/9ssR5gfqm5
- Ben Crump (@AttorneyCrump) April 21, 2021
Protests have erupted in the city after the incident, which comes amid growing outrage against police brutality and racism in the United States. The tension is all the greater in Columbus when on Saturday night, an unidentified gunman fired from his car at a group of "mothers of the murdered Columbus children" who were gathering outside a store where a young black man, Jarrin Hickman, had. been murdered a year earlier in an alleged drug trafficking case. Five people were injured and a 39-year-old woman, shot in the head by a stray bullet, was killed while driving her car.