An Ohio police officer has been acquitted of murder in the shooting death of a pregnant woman in a supermarket parking lot.
On August 24, 2023, Connor Grubb opened fire on Ta'Kiya Young when he and another officer ordered her out of her vehicle on suspicion of shoplifting alcohol.
Body camera video shows her car slowly rolling toward Mr. Grubb outside a Kroger store in suburban Columbus. In the footage, she can be heard asking: “Are you going to shoot me?”
The jury unanimously found him not guilty of two counts of murder, two counts of assault and two counts of manslaughter. Ms Young, 21, was 25 weeks pregnant. Her unborn daughter also died.
Mr. Grubb refused to testify at the trial, which included 17 witnesses, the Columbus Dispatch reported.
Sean Walton, a lawyer representing Young's family, called the verdict “an American tragedy,” the Associated Press reported.
Body camera video of the incident shows police approaching Ms. Young in her car on suspicion of stealing from a Kroger grocery store.
The video shows two officers talking to Ms. Young.
The video shows her car driving toward the officer, who then shoots, ordering her out of the car.
Grubb's lawyer then argued that his client had reason to believe he could be hit by a moving vehicle.
During the trial this month, jurors were asked to consider whether it was reasonable for Mr. Grubb to shoot Ms. Young while performing his duties as a police officer.
In closing arguments, the defense argued that Grubb's actions were “objectively reasonable.”
“The use of force response was not prompted by a shoplifting,” attorney Mark Collins said, Spectrum News reported.
“It was a car approaching him. It's not that hard, ladies and gentlemen.”
However, prosecutors argued that his actions were unjustified.
“The state does not allege that the defendant woke up that morning and wanted to fire a firearm,” District Attorney Erin Claypool said.
“The State says that when he made that decision, it was not reasonable, meaning it was not a justifiable shooting.”
In addition to her unborn child, Ms. Young had two other young children at the time of her death.
“It was agony, it was like a whirlwind of pain and pain,” Nadine Young, Ms. Young's grandmother, said last year.
