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An autopsy confirmed that 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant was shot four times by Columbus Police Officer Nicholas Reardon. The teen had been lunging at another young woman with a knife when the officer fired his gun.
The Franklin County Coroner’s Office released the autopsy on August 16. It detailed that Ma’Khia had been shot in the right side of her body in the back, her shoulder, her thigh and fatally in her lower torso.
According to The Columbus Dispatch, the latter bullet traveled into the teenager’s lung.
The publication went on to note that the coroner’s office ruled Ma’Khia’s death as a homicide, “which is a standard coroner’s ruling in a case where someone takes another person’s life.”
In July, MADAMENOIRE reported that the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation transferred the investigation into Ma’Khia’s death to the Franklin County Prosecutor’s office.
The teenager died on April 20, at a hospital near the location she was shot, just hours after the world witnessed Derek Chauvin received a guilty verdict in the murder of George Floyd.
Reardon, along with the other officers, responded to a 911 before arriving at the teen’s foster home to address a dispute that was ultimately the catalyst for her death.
According to CNN, Bryant’s foster mother, Angela Moore, who was away from home at the time of the altercation and subsequent shooting, said the “dispute involved Bryant and two other females in an argument over housekeeping.”
Police body camera footage captured the incident from the time of cops’ arrival to the moments after the 16-year-old was shot.
Charges have not been filed against Reardon as of yet, CNN noted.
The prosecutor’s investigation of the fatal situation remains ongoing.
