Former Ohio police officer found guilty of shooting an unarmed black man

Andre Hill was holding his phone while walking toward a police officer when he was fatally shot

A jury in the United States has found a former police officer guilty in the state of Ohio four years after he shot a Black man holding keys and a phone in a garage.

Officer Adam Coy, who shot Andre Hill four times in 2020, faces at least 15 years in prison after the jury verdict on Monday.

Prosecutors asked that the former officer be sentenced immediately, but the judge set a sentencing date of November 25 instead.

Coy, who is white and had served 20 years on the Columbus, Ohio police force, told jurors that he thought Hill was holding a silver revolver.

“I thought I was going to die,” he testified. It was only after he rolled over Hill’s body and saw the keys that he realised there was no gun, Coy said. “I knew at that point I made a mistake. I was horrified.”

According to a police body cam recording, 47-year-old Hill was walking out of a friend’s garage, holding his phone in his left hand while his right hand was not visible, just seconds before he was shot.

It took ten minutes for police to provide aid to Hill, who lay bleeding on the floor of the garage. He was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Prosecutors argued that Hill, a father and grandfather, followed Coy’s commands and was never a threat to the police officer.

During the trial, Coy’s lawyers said that Hill’s lack of a weapon didn’t matter because the police officer thought his life was in danger. He had gone to the neighbourhood because of complaints about someone inside a running vehicle.

Police shootings

The conviction is the latest in a series of highly controversial incidents in the US involving white officers and Black victims. Brett Hankison, a former police officer in the state of Kentucky, was convicted last week of violating the civil rights of Breonna Taylor, a Black woman whose death in a police raid ignited racial justice protests across the United States in 2020.

Taylor was shot to death by officers acting on a no-knock warrant.

Hankison was convicted on one count of civil rights abuse on Friday, with a 12-member federal jury determining that he used excessive force on Taylor during the raid.

Changes in policing

Coy was fired shortly after the fatal shooting, and the ensuing controversy over Hill’s death led to changes in the city’s policing.

The mayor forced the city’s police chief to resign after a series of fatal police shootings of Black men and children.

Columbus later reached a $10m settlement with Hill’s family, the largest in the city’s history. The Columbus City Council also passed Andre’s Law, which requires police officers to render immediate medical attention to an injured suspect.

The settlement announcement followed other large payouts by US cities over the killing of Black people by white officers.

The city of Minneapolis reached a $27m settlement with the family of George Floyd ahead of the trial of Derek Chauvin, the white former officer charged in Floyd’s death.

The city of Louisville, Kentucky, agreed to pay Breonna Taylor’s family $12m and reform police practices.