A grand jury indicted former Columbus, Ohio, police officer Ricky Anderson Friday for murder and reckless homicide in the 2022 death of Donovan Lewis, court records show.
via: ABC News
Body camera footage was released of the encounter last September and Anderson, a 30-year veteran of the Columbus Police Department, appears to open fire almost immediately after police open the bedroom door to where Lewis was sleeping. He later died at a hospital.
Anderson retired in bad standing months after the shooting.
“We are relieved that a grand jury concluded what we’ve known all along: Officer Ricky Anderson broke the law when he shot and killed an unarmed Donovan Lewis as he laid in his bed,” the attorneys for Rebecca Duran, Lewis’ mother, said in a statement Friday. “CPD bodycam video showed this clearly and nothing has changed in almost a year. Although Mr. Lewis’ family is pleased that his killer will soon face a jury of his peers, they are incredibly disappointed that it took so long to come to this conclusion in the first place.”
Police officers were executing a warrant on Lewis’ home to arrest him on three separate charges: domestic violence, assault and improper handling of a firearm.
Mark Collins, the attorney for Anderson, said in a statement last September, “When we analyze police-involved shootings, we must look to the totality of the circumstances, and we are expressly forbidden from using 20/20 hindsight, because unlike all of us, officers are not afforded the luxury of armchair reflection when they are faced with rapidly evolving, volatile encounters in dangerous situations.”
Lewis’ mother said she was “grateful” for the indictment but that she is trying to trust the process.
“I’m doing my best to keep it together day by day,” Duran said at a press event on Friday with her attorneys and Tariq Stewart, Lewis’ brother. “Bottom line is he should still be here and I’m going to be grieving that for the rest of my life.”
Rex Elliott, one of her attorneys, said he was also grateful for the charges but criticized what he called an “unreasonable” amount of time to get to them.
“The reality is that there is a different justice system for citizens and there’s a different justice system for police officers,” Elliott said at the press event. “This never should have taken this long.”
“They want people to become numb to what happened, and we are not numb to what happened,” he continued, adding that he is “confident” Anderson will be convicted and “held accountable for what he did.”
Lewis’ family filed a civil suit against Anderson, as well as four other officers involved in the raid, in February.
According to the complaint, Anderson had a total of 58 complaints against him over the years, including use of force complaints, and has also been reprimanded for sexual harassment while on the job.
“As prosecutors pursue Mr. Anderson in the criminal case, we will continue to fight for justice and accountability in our civil case,” the lawyers for Duran said Friday. “Our hope is that no other parent has to bury their child as the result of a reckless act by a member of law enforcement.”
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