Blendon Township officer found not guility in fatal shooting of pregnant woman

See Ta’Kiya Young’s families emotion response to not guilty verdict

Jurors found Blendon Township police officer Connor Grubb not guilty in the shooting death of Ta’Kiya Young. She was six months pregnant.

• A Franklin County jury has reached a verdict in the murder trial of Blendon Township police officer Connor Grubb.
• Grubb was charged in the August 2023 shooting death of Ta’Kiya Young, a 21-year-old pregnant woman, in a grocery store parking lot.
• The jury deliberated after a trial that included testimony from 17 witnesses over more than two weeks.
• The judge previously dismissed four charges against Grubb related to the death of Young’s unborn child.

A Franklin County jury acquitted a Blendon Township police officer of murder and other charges in the fatal shooting of a pregnant woman accused of shoplifting from a grocery store. 

The jury reached a verdict after about eight hours of deliberation over two days in this case of Connor Grubb, who was charged in the fatal shooting of 21-year-old Ta’Kiya Young, who was about six months pregnant at the time of her death.

The jury of nine women and three men indicated around 10:30 a.m. on Nov. 21 that they had reached a unanimous decision about Grubb’s fate. Deliberations began around 9:25 a.m. on Nov. 20. The jury left for the day around 3:30 p.m. and resumed deliberations at 9 a.m. on Nov. 21.

The judge scrapped two hours of deliberations on Nov. 19 after one of the jurors experienced a medical emergency that required overnight hospitalization. Common Pleas Court Judge David Young substituted a female alternate onto the panel and instructed the jury to start over. 

The jury’s deliberation began more than two and a half weeks after Grubb’s trial started on Nov. 3, with testimony beginning on Nov. 10. Jurors heard from 17 witnesses, 14 from the special prosecutors in the case and three in Grubb’s defense. Grubb did not testify.

On Aug. 24, 2023, Grubb fatally shot Ta’Kiya Young during an interaction that lasted about 10 seconds. The situation began when Blendon Township Sgt. Erik Moynihan, who was helping a woman who was locked out of her car, was flagged down by a Kroger employee in the Sunbury Road store’s parking lot. 

The employee told Moynihan a woman had stolen from the store and pointed to Young’s vehicle, identifying her as a suspect. Moynihan testified that the car did not have a license plate. He approached the driver’s side window and told Young to turn off her car and get out to talk about the allegations. Young refused. 

Body camera video shows Grubb walking to the front of Young’s car before it moves forward, hitting him in the lower body. Images and videos shown during Grubb’s trial show Grubb’s feet off the ground when he fired the single shot that struck Young. 

What happened during Connor Grubb’s trial?

The jury decided on six charges against Grubb, who had initially faced 10 felonies. Judge Young dismissed four charges against Grubb, all related to the death of Young’s unborn child, on Nov. 18 after he said prosecutors failed to present any evidence in the case to support them. 

Throughout the trial, the special prosecutors, from the Montgomery County Prosecutor’s office, and Grubb’s attorneys, Mark Collins and Kaitlyn Stephens, had heated discussions about evidence and what Grubb’s attorneys said were purposeful actions by the prosecutors to skirt the law. 

After the closing arguments finished on Nov. 19, Collins angrily asked for a mistrial, saying special prosecutor Dan Brandt had blatantly disregarded Judge Young’s prior rulings and case law in an effort to invoke sympathy from the jury. 

“This was calculated,” Collins said. “The case law is clear, and they violated it.”

Young denied the request for a mistrial but did read the jury another instruction telling them to disregard the prosecutor’s comments specifically. 

Grubb is currently on unpaid leave from the Blendon Township police department, which has previously said any internal review of the shooting would not happen until the criminal case was over.

Young’s estate has also filed a civil lawsuit against Grubb, Blendon Township and Kroger.

Reporter Bethany Bruner can be reached at bbruner@dispatch.com or on Bluesky at @bethanybruner.dispatch.com.