Following the death of a knife-wielding 16-year-old, hundreds of student activists at Ohio State University staged a protest inside of the student union demanding an end to the school’s contract with the Columbus Police Department.
According to the Ohio State student-led newspaper, The Lantern, 400 students convened at the student union to demand that the school cut ties with the Columbus police. The Undergraduate Student Government (USG) has attempted to pass similar non-binding legislation in recent months, though the demands were reinvigorated following the shooting of a 16-year-old by a Columbus police officer.
On Tuesday night, a Columbus police officer shot and killed 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant. Bodycam footage of the interaction shows Bryant was attempting to stab a 13-year-old black girl when a policeman, who was called to the scene, intervened and discharged his weapon.
Students have come to believe that the shooting of Bryant was unjustified and another indicator of the deep-seated “systemic racism” in police and America.
Pranav Jani, an associate professor of English at Ohio State, documented the staged protest at the student union. “A few hundred people out here at Ohio State to protest police murder. #makhiabryant #BlackLivesMatter,” Jani tweeted. “Check that. Several hundred. Now occupying = taking back = the Ohio Union. And making it a student union again.”
Hundreds occupying the Ohio Union to protest police murder #makhiabryant #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/UvOM2Qg4Ok
— Pranav Jani (@redguju) April 21, 2021
Per Jani’s documentation, students marched from the union to the Columbus Capitol building carrying signs with Bryant’s name and other social justice messages.
According to Campus Reform, the university’s police department has just 59 officers to deal with the school’s 61,000 students. University spokesperson Ben Johnson said in a statement that the university primarily uses the Columbus police contracts for specific services such as traffic control for large athletic events.
The Columbus police officer involved in the shooting of Bryant has received intense national backlash from liberal activists and politicians, including from NBA star Lebron James. In a since-deleted tweet, James appeared to demonize the Columbus police officer by tweeting out his picture with the caption, “YOU’RE NEXT. #ACCOUNTABILITY.” James included an emoji of an hourglass, signifying that time is running out.
A Bowling Green State University criminal justice professor, who specializes in studying the fatal use of force by law enforcement, told the Columbus Dispatch he believes the shooting was justified.
“It’s a terribly tragic situation,” said Professor Philip Stinson. “But from looking at the video, it appears to me that a reasonable police officer would have had a reasonable apprehension of an imminent threat of serious bodily injury or death being imposed against an officer or someone else. That’s the legal standard.”
Bryant’s neighbor, Donavon Brinson, also told the Columbus Dispatch that the police officer likely could not have done anything differently, and had he not acted, more people could have died.
The Daily Wire reported, “Brinson heard the girls fighting across the street, heard the shots, and reviewed the entire incident caught on his security camera. Brison said he believes that had the officer not acted as he did, more people may have died.”