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The Ohio police officer who shot and killed Ta’Kiya Young was acquitted Friday on all counts, including murder.
Young was an excited mom of two little boys, and pregnant with her first daughter, when she encountered Connor Grubb at a Kroger supermarket parking lot on Aug. 24, 2023. She was accused of shoplifting by a store employee and tried to flee the parking lot in her car, according to police body camera footage. A single shot was fired.
On Friday, Young’s grandmother, Nadine Young, collapsed into sobs at the decision, shouting “It’s not right! This is not right!”
Sean Walton, an attorney for the Young family, called the outcome “an American tragedy,” lamenting what he said is a dual system of justice in the U.S., according to the Associated Press. The family’s legal team vowed to continue its fight in civil court, where her estate sued the township and police chief over department practices in August.
Young was gunned down by Grubb 23 days after her 21st birthday. Her unborn baby was due that November 2023.
Last year, a Franklin County grand jury indicted Grubb on four counts of murder, four counts of felonious assault, and two counts of involuntary manslaughter after evaluating evidence for two days, prosecutors said. Blendon Township Police Chief John Belford said in a video statement that his “disciplinary process” began.
Montgomery County Prosecuting Attorney Mat Heck Jr.’s office was called in by Franklin County’s outgoing chief prosecutor, Anthony Pierson, to handle Young’s case. Blendon Township is a northeast suburb of Columbus and is located in Franklin County.
Grubb was the fourth Franklin County law enforcement officer to be indicted in the death of a Black person since 2020, and the second prosecuted by a special prosecutor — an increased effort in recent years to avoid potential biases between police officers and prosecutors.
“We thank the grand jury, but we insist that this is but a step, not the conclusion, of our collective journey towards justice for Ta’Kiya and her unborn daughter,” Sean Walton, the attorney for Young’s family, wrote in a statement at the time of the indictment.
The announcement gave advocates like Karla White Carey, whose hometown is Columbus, hope for other counties to follow their lead with holding police officers accountable. But she was concerned that with terms like “federal immunity” floating around, police accountability may look completely different after Nov. 5. Federal immunity is a term misused by President Donald Trump when referring to “qualified immunity” — a civil liability protection for law enforcement officers — to which he has said police should be “immune from prosecution.”
“But I hope that what we are doing here,