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COLUMBUS (AFP) – The fatal shooting of an unarmed black man by police in Columbus, Ohio, the second such murder in the United States city this month, sparked a new wave of protests on Thursday (December 24) against racial injustice and police brutality in the country. .
Andre Maurice Hill, 47, was in the garage of a home Monday night when a police officer who had been called to the scene for a minor incident shot him multiple times.
Seconds before the shooting, body camera footage shows Hill walking towards the police officer holding a cell phone in his left hand, while his other hand cannot be seen.
Columbus Police Chief Thomas Quinlan announced Thursday that he was firing the officer, Adam Coy, on charges of “critical misconduct.”
“We have an officer who violated his oath to comply with the rules and policies of the Columbus Police Division,” Quinlan said in a statement. “This rape cost the life of an innocent man.”
According to local media reports, Coy had previously received complaints of the use of excessive force.
Coy and his colleague waited several minutes before approaching Mr. Hill, who was still alive, but later died.
Hill, the second African-American killed by police in Columbus in less than three weeks, was not carrying a weapon.
23-year-old Casey Goodson Jr was shot multiple times on December 4 while returning home. His family have said he was holding a sandwich that authorities mistook for a weapon.
Several dozen protesters gathered Thursday, waving Black Lives Matter signs and calling for justice for those killed in police shootings.
The murders in Columbus come after a summer in which the United States was rocked by historic protests against racial injustice and police brutality, sparked by the May murder of African American George Floyd.
Mr. Floyd, also unarmed, suffocated under the knee of a white police officer in Minneapolis. Horrified passersby filmed his death, and the footage quickly went viral.
“Once again officers see a black man and conclude that he is a criminal and dangerous,” said attorney Ben Crump, who defends several families of victims of police brutality, including Floyd’s.
He denounced a “tragic succession of shootings involving agents”.
Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther said he was “outraged” by Hill’s death.
He was “known to the neighbors of the house where his car was parked on the street,” he told a news conference on Wednesday, describing him as “a guest … not an intruder.”
Ginther said he was “very concerned” that the two police officers failed to give Mr. Hill first aid and called for Coy’s “immediate dismissal”.
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