Source: Breitbart
A neighbor of the Ohio teenager fatally shot by police reportedly said video from his security camera made him believe the officer had no other option but to shoot.
“They were calling each other the B-word, so I figured it was just a girl fight,” said Donavon Brinson, according to the New York Post.
He explained the yelling grew louder when he took his dog into his backyard, so he went back inside, the outlet continued:
And when police arrived, he said he heard four shots as his wife, Rachel, dove to the floor. Brinson said he looked out the window of his laundry room and saw the mortally wounded Ma’Khia Bryant lying on the ground. He quickly thought of his surveillance camera affixed to the garage and watched the shocking footage, which captured the fight and the glint of a knife.
“It was violent and all just happened so fast,” Brinson recalled, mentioning another girl in pink who was the second person involved in the incident with Bryant.
Brinson later gave his video to authorities and said he believed if police had not acted, more people might have been killed.
The Columbus Division of Police released an officer’s bodycam footage showing the shooting of the teen who appeared to be armed with a knife, Breitbart News reported Tuesday.
“The video appears to show the girl fighting with another girl as the officer opens fire,” the outlet said.
WARNING: GRAPHIC VIDEO
#Columbus
*potentially disturbing*
Body cam. Suspect had a large knife and officers were responding to reports of a knife. pic.twitter.com/ddoXQKXxSf— Shane B. Murphy (@shanermurph) April 21, 2021
During an interview with ABC News shared Wednesday, NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson said the fatal shooting of Bryant was a situation “where a taser should have been used, and yet a gun was used.”
However, neighbor Ira Graham III, who has lived in the neighborhood for 19 years, told the Columbus Dispatch he went to the house and saw police performing CPR on Bryant and later saw the bodycam footage.
“I believe in truth and facts. Video doesn’t lie,” he noted, adding, “She was in full attack mode.”
Bryant was “literally aiming a knife at this young lady,” he said of the girl wearing pink. “She needed to be stopped at that point. That young lady’s life was at stake.”
