City officials have disclosed that a white cop who recently shot a Black man dead in Columbus, Ohio, has been fired.
Andre Maurice Hill’s death sparked outrage in a country that has been rocked with protests against police brutality and systemic racism for months.
The 47-year-old African-American was in the garage of a building when he was fired several shots by a police officer whose attention had been called to the scene in respect of a minor incident.
Initially, the officer, Adam Coy, was suspended after the shooting.
While talking about the officer, Columbus police chief Thomas Quinlan said: “The evidence provided solid rationale for termination. Mr Coy will now have to answer to the state investigators for the death of Andre Hill.”
Hill was not armed at the time of the shooting and he was the second African-American killed by police within three weeks in Columbus.
While reacting to Hill’s death, Ben Crump, a lawyer that has represented families of many victims of police killings including George Floyd said: “Andre Hill’s death is another tragic example of the tendency of police to view Black people as criminal or dangerous, and it points to the need for comprehensive, national police reform.”
