The former Columbus police officer accused of killing Andre Hill was indicted for murder this week. Hill’s only child, Karissa, said the family will not be satisfied until former officer Adam Coy is convicted. She lived with Hill and told CBS News’ Adriana Diaz that life at home isn’t the same without her father.
“We weren’t able to stay at the house. It’s just too many…his stuff everywhere. His work bag by the door. His shoes,” Karissa tearfully said.
Coy is accused of fatally shooting Hill, a 47-year-old Black man, within minutes after responding to a non-emergency call about a suspicious car in late December. Authorities said Hill was left lying on the ground for several minutes after he was shot. He died of his injuries, leaving behind Karissa and three grandchildren.
Days after the shooting, Coy was fired from the Colombus police department after the city’s police chief called the shooting “horrific” and recommended Coy’s termination. He was arrested Wednesday and is expected to plead not guilty to four charges, including murder and dereliction of duty for failure to properly turn on his body camera. His attorneys Mark Collins and Kaitlyn Stephens said Coy thought a set of keys in Hill’s right hand was a silver revolver.
“My client saw a round silver object that he believed to be a silver revolver, and he announced gun, gun, gun,” Collins said.
“There was no gun recovered at the scene,” Diaz said.
“There was not,” Collins said.
Collins believes Coy firing his gun was a reasonable split-second decision.
“You have to view it through the eyes of a reasonable police officer. You can’t consider what you would do as a citizen an in a normal everyday life experiences,” Collins responded.
Officials said Coy did not activate his body camera until after the shooting. Instead, video of the encounter was captured by a 60-second “look back” feature Coy started when he turned on his camera after the shooting. The “look back” feature does not capture audio. Officials said the body camera footage shows that 12 minutes passed before anyone rendered aid to Hill, something Hill’s sister, Shawna Barnett, called another injustice.
“To watch my brother die, I mean, out there with no medical help, period, no kind of sympathy or empathy for him at all, and then to watch him get turned over and handcuffed is unbelievable,” Barnett said.
Hill’s family, represented by attorney Benjamin Crump, had previously called for Coy to be arrested. Crump tweeted that Coy robbed Hill’s family of joyous holidays together and that the former officer must be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.
