04/14/2021
Demonstrations continued for the second night in a row in the aftermath of police fatally shooting a Black man on Monday.
Confrontations between police and protesters broke out Tuesday night when Columbus police deployed pepper spray around 9:15 p.m. on a group who had broken into the division's Marconi Boulevard headquarters. It appeared one person was taken into custody at the scene.
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Mayor Andrew Ginther issued a statement late Tuesday urging future demonstrators to remain peaceful.
“We share the frustrations over police killings of unarmed Black men, and we support nonviolent protests," Ginther said in the statement. "That does not include breaking into public buildings or violence against officers. Let me be clear: Violence and destruction will not be tolerated.”
The clash came after a crowd of more than 100 had marched through Downtown streets and congregated outside the division's headquarters to protest the police killing of Miles Jackson, 27, inside a medical center in Westerville.
Read More: St. Ann's shooting updates: Protesters break into Columbus police headquarters, pepper spray used
Protesters march up North Front Street in downtown Columbus on April 13, 2021. Miles Jackson was shot and killed inside Mount Carmel in Westerville by police on Monday. Well over 100 demonstrators took to the street.
Shooting at Mount Carmel St. Ann's
Jackson, of the Northwest Side, was shot by police in the emergency department Mount Carmel St. Ann's following an altercation, police said. Emergency department personnel immediately attempted to revive Jackson and transferred him to a trauma bay, but he did not survive his injuries.
Jackson had originally been transported to the medical center sometime Monday morning after he was found unconscious in a vehicle in Westerville.
Westerville police determined that the man was wanted on arrest warrants from Columbus police on charges of domestic violence and for having a weapon under disability for a prior felony conviction. The shooting occurred during a transfer of custody to Columbus police.
Protester receives medical attention as police surround Columbus Division of Police headquarters after pepper spray was deployed on a group after they broke a lock and entered the building on April 13, 2021. A peaceful march with over 100 demonstrators took to the streets earlier in the evening. Miles Jackson was shot and killed inside Mount Carmel in Westerville by police yesterday.
Protesters object to 'pipeline of suffering' around police shootings nationwide
On Tuesday, a group of protesters had initially gathered around 8 p.m. outside police headquarters where a series of demonstrators spoke to the crowd through a megaphone. They mentioned not only Jackson, but Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man who was fatally shot by a Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, police officer during a traffic stop.
Speakers also referenced the killings of Casey Goodson Jr. — a 23-year-old Black man fatally shot Dec. 4 as he attempted to enter his residence in the Northland area by Franklin County Sheriff's SWAT deputy Jason Meade — and Andre Hill, a 47-year-old unarmed Black man shot and killed Dec. 23 by former Columbus police officer Adam Coy, who has been indicted for murder.
"We see this pipeline of suffering that's directed toward Black people," said one speaker who would only identify as "Storm." "Ultimately it's Black bodies that pay the price."
The crowd then marched through the street east on Long Street and south on High Street.
The crowd briefly stopped on High Street on the west side of the Ohio Statehouse to chant slogans such as "Black lives matter" and "whose streets? Our streets" before moving on and, heading west on State Street and North on Front Street, ending where they started.
The demonstration appeared to be coming to an end before a clash with police ensued.
Protesters yell towards the police surrounding Columbus Division of Police headquarters after pepper spray was deployed on a group after they broke a lock and entered the building on April 13, 2021. A peaceful march with over 100 demonstrators took to the streets earlier in the evening. Miles Jackson was shot and killed inside Mount Carmel in Westerville by police yesterday.
Previous protests
A day before, protesters gathered near Mount Carmel St. Ann's at the corner of South Cleveland Avenue and West Schrock Road on Monday night within hours of Jackson's death.
A lone Black Lives Matter flag was held aloft on the southeastern corner of Cleveland Avenue and Schrock Road as a group of 50 or so chanted slogans and the names of Black men fatally shot by police while traffic whizzed by the busy intersection. After sunset, the group marched on the sidewalk toward the medical center, where they shouted at police staged in the parking lot and continued to chant.
Hana Abdur-Rahim leads protesters who marched to the Mount Carmel St. Ann's hospital in Westerville after a male suspect was shot and killed by police in the emergency department.
A megaphone in hand, Hana Abdur-Rahim, a community organizer and activist from the South Side, led the protesters most of the way.
Just as she did nearly every night last fall, and last summer, and late last spring, and then again in December and in the winter months that followed, Hana Abdur-Rahim marched through on city streets again Monday night. And Tuesday night. And probably in the coming days.
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Because police killed another Black man and nothing has changed, she said.
“I’m feeling a sense of redundancy in the sense that this keeps happening and the police in the city seem to have the same script every time,” said Abdur-Rahim, a community organizer and activist from the South Side, who acknowledged the circumstances of Jackson's death differed from that of Goodson and Hill. “And the police are never held accountable.”
Columbus Dispatch reporter Holly Zachariah contributed to this story
Police deployed pepper spray on protesters Tuesday night who had broken into the headquarters' lobby following a march through Downtown Columbus.
