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| Jayland Walker: No charges for officers in fatal Ohio arrest | Jayland Walker: No charges for officers in fatal Ohio arrest |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| The fatal police shooting led to protests last year | The fatal police shooting led to protests last year |
| A grand jury in Ohio has declined to indict eight officers who shot a black man in a traffic stop last year saying they were legally justified in killing him, the state's attorney general said. | |
| Autopsy report found Jayland Walker, 25, was shot at least 46 times by Akron police after an attempted stop and chase for a minor traffic violation. | |
| Police say that he fired a single shot at them first while fleeing in his car. | |
| Mr Walker's death sparked major protests in Akron last year. | |
| Body camera footage released by the police shows Walker, in a ski mask, jumping out of the moving vehicle from its passenger side and ducking into a parking lot where police opened fire on him from multiple directions. | |
| Police later found an unloaded handgun, one magazine of ammunition and a wedding band in the driver's seat of his vehicle. | |
| Watch: Police release footage showing the fatal shooting of Jayland Walker | Watch: Police release footage showing the fatal shooting of Jayland Walker |
| Watch: Police release footage showing the fatal shooting of Jayland Walker | Watch: Police release footage showing the fatal shooting of Jayland Walker |
| Ohio Republican Attorney General Dave Yost announced the jury's decision in a news conference on Monday. | |
| He said that that the Akron police officers did not know that Walker's gun remained inside the car when he fled on foot, and that he made a threatening gesture before he was shot. | |
| Walker "reached for his waistband in what several officers described as a cross-draw motion, planted his foot and turned toward the officers while raising hand," Mr Yost said. | |
| "Only then did the officers fire, believing Mr Walker was firing again at them." | |
| A toxicology report found that Walker, a food delivery driver with no criminal record, did not have drugs or alcohol in his system at the time of his death. | |
| The fatal arrest took place on 27 June 2022 as officers attempted to stop him for a minor traffic violation - a darkened license plate light. | |
| "Mr Walker was going through a very tough time in his life," said Assistant Attorney General Anthony Pierson on Monday, adding that his fiancée had died shortly beforehand. | |
| "He was going through a very tough time and he was hurting. And that night that he encountered the police, he was not acting (like) himself," he said, according to NBC News. | |
| "By all accounts, this was a good man, a good person with no prior criminal record, so he was not acting (like) himself." | |
| The eight officers involved in the shooting were placed on administrative leave, but returned to work about three months after the shooting. | |
| The group fired a total of 94 shots in a span of 6.7 seconds. Three of the officers fired 18 times each. | |
| The jury's decision did not need to be unanimous in order for the officers to face charges. Seven of the nine jurors - who sat to hear five days of evidence - would have had to vote to indict in order for prosecutors to bring charges. | |
| The specially-convened grand jury included six women and three men. Two of the three men are black, according to the Akron Beacon Journal newspaper. | |
| Barricades had been erected at the Akron City Hall and the local courthouse ahead of the jury's decision. | |
| Related Topics | Related Topics |
| Ohio | Ohio |
| US police killings | US police killings |
| United States | United States |