A former Ohio police officer was found guilty of murder for killing an unarmed man who emerged from a darkened garage while holding a cellphone and a large set of keys.
Adam Coy, a 17-year veteran of the Columbus police force, shot Andre Hill four times while responding to a neighbor’s noise complaint on Dec. 22, 2020. He was charged with murder, felonious assault, and reckless homicide.
On Monday, almost four years after the shooting, a jury in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas delivered a verdict that found Coy guilty of all charges.
Prosecutors asked that Coy be sentenced immediately, but Franklin County Judge Stephen McIntosh set Nov. 25 as the sentencing date. The former officer faces a possible life sentence in prison.
Coy was responding to reports of a vehicle being continuously restarted when he asked Hill to come out of a garage in the early morning hours, court records show. Footage from Coy’s body camera shows Hill, who was holding a cell phone in his left hand and whose right hand was not visible, was shot just seconds after the two saw each other.
During the trial, Coy told jurors that he feared for his life because he thought he saw a silver revolver coming up in Hill’s right hand as the man walked towards him. He said it was only after the shooting that he realized he mistook a set of keys for a gun.
“I thought I was going to die,” Coy testified. “I knew at that point I made a mistake. I was horrified.”
Coy had not activated the camera on what started as a nonemergency call, but a “look-back” feature recorded 60 seconds of video with no audio before the officer flipped the device on. The footage then shows him walking around for several minutes as more police officers arrived at the scene.
Bodycam footage from police officer Amy Detweiler, who was with Coy at the time of the shooting, shows two other Columbus officers rolling Hill over and putting handcuffs on him before leaving him alone again. None of the officers attempted first aid as Hill lay bleeding on the garage floor. Hill was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Coy was fired days after the deadly encounter for failing to activate his body camera before the confrontation and for not providing medical aid to Hill.
“His violations of policy and standards were so clear-cut and so egregious his termination could not wait,” Columbus Police Chief Thomas Quinlan said at the time in a video statement, adding that he felt “anger and deep disappointment” after watching the footage.
Prosecutors said Hill had followed the officer’s commands and was never a threat to the officers.
“We’re taught do what the cops tell you to do, and you can survive that encounter,” Franklin County Assistant Prosecutor Anthony Pierson said during closing arguments. “That’s not what happened here.”
The officer’s attorneys argued that Hill’s lack of a weapon did not matter because Coy thought his life was in danger. “He wasn’t reckless, he was reasonable,” said attorney Mark Collins.
Also advocating on Coy’s behalf was the Ohio chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, which argued that the case was “marked by political influence and bias” as it involved a white officer killing a black man at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement.
“We assert that this incident does not rise to the level of murder,” the police union said in a statement on X. “We have voiced concerns since the beginning about the politically charged statements from public figures, activists, and the media, which, in our view, made a fair trial in this country unattainable.”
Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther, who pressured the police department to fire Coy in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, on Monday said he stood by that call.
“We demand and expect more from our officers. This will never change,” he said in a statement posted to X.
In May 2021, Columbus reached a $10 million settlement with Hill’s family, a payout reported to be the largest in the city’s history.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
From The Epoch Times