Blendon Township revealed footage from a body camera that showed the fatal shooting of Ta’Kiya Young, 21, on Friday morning.
The incident happened on August 24 at 6:20 p.m. in the Kroger parking lot at 5991 S. Sunbury Road, and both officers’ body cameras captured the footage.
Young died at Mount Carmel St. Ann’s after being shot once. She was eight months pregnant. Her family said she was expecting a daughter in November, but the child did not survive.
According to previous Blendon Township reports Young was one of several people who shoplifted alcohol and other items from the business before an employee hailed down police officers who were already in the parking lot responding to another complaint.
On the footage, a store employee can be heard telling an officer that Young had shoplifted before getting into a car parked just across from where the police were attempting to help someone who had locked themselves out of their vehicle. Young’s rolled-down driver-side window is approached by a police officer, who indicates for her to stop and instructs her to leave the car.
Young lowers the window halfway and says, “For what?” as a pocketbook over her left shoulder conceals her belly. While the first officer continues demanding Young to get out of the car, the second moves up to the front.
Young is seen driving forward and colliding with the second cop, whose feet are seen above the ground as Young fires a single shot through the glass. The automobile continues until it collides with the building where Young is.
According to the video, cops reacted promptly by smashing Young’s driver-side window and pulling her from the vehicle.
Blendon Township Chief John Belford said in a statement on Friday that officers called paramedics within 10 seconds after pulling Young from the automobile. Cops applied a chest seal to Young’s wound in under 70 seconds, and an ER doctor who happened to be in the parking lot at the moment swiftly came in to help.
According to Chief John Belford, officers placed a chest seal on Young’s wound, implying she was shot in the chest, but the Franklin County Coroner’s office would not comment on the location of the bullet wound.
Blendon Township has not named either officer because of Marsy’s Law, which is meant to protect crime victims but has been claimed by police agencies because they can’t reveal the identity of officers involved in similar cases.
According to a statement made by the police department on Friday, the first officer, who did not fire any rounds, was the victim of misdemeanor assault since his arm and hand were inside the driver’s windscreen as Young accelerated. According to the statement, there was an attempted vehicle assault on the second officer, who fired his pistol.
Because of the department’s tiny size, authorities have declined to tell The Dispatch how long any officer has been on the force. The least experienced of the department’s fifteen officers has been on the job for three years.
Belford said on Friday that the officer who was not involved in the shooting has been restored to patrol duties after a period of administrative leave.
Young was already inside the vehicle when the cops came, and they had no clue she was pregnant.
Young’s family has said via their lawyer that they do not anticipate the body camera footage to be made public until Friday. Before it is released to the broader public, the film will be screened to the family first. The Youngs have also requested that the identity of the cops involved in the shooting be made public, alleging that shielding them under Marsy’s Law is an abuse of authority.
The Young family said nothing after witnessing the video at the Blendon Township government offices on Friday morning.
According to Chanda Brown, one of the family’s attorneys, the video explains everything.
The shooting, she claims, was unwarranted.
“I witnessed the murder of a young lady,” Brown said.
Brown said the family wanted “all the justice they could fight for” if the officer was charged with murder.
Brown said, “It’s clear that they’re devastated and upset.”
Belford published a statement on Friday, calling redacting the picture “extremely complex.”
The redaction was “extremely complex” since “there were two body cameras that were constantly moving and there were numerous reflective surfaces showing the faces of the two officers,” he claimed. Our little staff put in a lot of time and work on this and the legal review.
