Officer acquitted of murder in shooting death of Ta’Kiya Young, pregnant Black mother accused of shoplifting
An Ohio officer who shot and killed a pregnant Black mother in a supermarket parking lot after she was accused of shoplifting has been acquitted of all charges, including murder, after multiple days of deliberation.
Blendon Township police officer Connor Grubb could have faced up to life in prison for the shooting death of Ta’Kiya Young.
The courtroom was silent as the verdicts were read aloud by the judge on Friday. Grubb appeared stalwart, while Young’s grandmother, who is raising her two sons, collapsed into sobs at the decision. She could be heard shouting “It’s not right! This is not right!”
Grubb and Moynihan had approached Young’s parked car on Aug. 24, 2023, about a report that she was suspected of stealing alcohol from a Kroger store in the Columbus suburb. She partially lowered her window and protested as both officers cursed at her and yelled at her to get out. Bodycam video showed Grubb had his left hand on the car’s hood while pointing his gun at her with his right. Young could be heard asking them, “Are you going to shoot me?”
Then, she put on a turn signal and her car rolled slowly forward toward Grubb, who fired a single bullet into her chest, the recording showed.
Moments later, after the car came to a stop against the building, they broke the driver’s side window. Police said they tried to save her life, but she was mortally wounded. Young and her unborn daughter were pronounced dead at a hospital.
Jurors were shown the body cam video and heard expert testimony during the two-week trial. They heard from Sgt. Erick Moynihan, the officer who with Grubb had ordered Young out of her car. Grubb attended the trial but did not testify. He submitted a statement read into the record by a special agent for the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
/ AP
In the statement, Grubb said he had positioned himself in front of Young’s vehicle to provide backup and to protect other people in the parking lot. He said he drew his gun after he heard Young fail to comply with Moynihan’s commands. When her car moved toward him, he said, he felt the vehicle hit his legs and shins and begin to lift his body off the ground as he shot.
Franklin County Common Pleas Judge David Young, no relation to Ta’Kiya, dropped four of 10 counts relating to the death of Young’s unborn daughter, agreeing with defense attorneys that prosecutors failed to present proof that Grubb knew Young was pregnant when he shot her.
Sean Walton, an attorney for the Young family, called the outcome “an American tragedy,” lamenting what he said is a dual system of justice in the U.S. The family’s legal team vowed to continue its fight in civil court, where her estate sued the township and police chief over department practices in August. The federal lawsuit filed against the police chief alleges that Grubb was not was not trained or supervised properly and “recklessly escalated” his response to the situation.
Grubb’s attorney, Mark Collins, said that Grubb cried after the verdict was read. In his comments, Collins also criticized protests that occurred at the courthouse during the trial, and said that Grubb should never have been subject to felony murder charges.
“For the rest of his life, he has to deal with this,” Collins said. “You didn’t get to hear from him because the government put his statement on, but he feels he took a life on duty and realizing, in his life after the fact, he has to walk around with that. And that is a difficult situation.”
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