There is outrage in the city of Columbus, Ohio after another high-profile killing of a Black man by a police officer.
Henry Green, 23, was shot and killed by undercover police officers in 2016 after they said he ignored commands.
Tyre King, 13, was also killed in 2016 for allegedly pulling a BB gun from his waistband while being apprehended by officers.
Kareem Ali Nadir Jones, 30, was murdered in 2017 after officers said they felt threatened.
Julius Tate Jr., 16, was killed in 2018 for allegedly pulling a gun on an undercover cop.
Now, activists and the local chapter of the NAACP are calling for transparency over the mysterious shooting of Casey Goodson, Jr., 23, at the hands of a white police officer, Jason Meade, a 17-year veteran of the force.
Goodson was returning from a trip to the dentist and a stop at Subway to pick up sandwiches for his family on December 5 when he was found shot in the doorway of his grandmother’s home. Authorities say the officer saw Goodson driving with a gun.
Deputies were in the neighborhood on an investigation with U.S. Marshals that had nothing to do with Goodson.
Goodson parked his car, got out, walked past the front yard carrying the sandwiches, and went to the side entrance of the house. Then, according to authorities, there was a verbal altercation between Goodson and Meade, and the officer shot him multiple times in the back.
Franklin County Coroner’s Office has determined his death a homicide.
“The problematic part is Goodson was shot walking into his home, not exiting out of the vehicle,” said the family’s attorney, Sean Walton.
“Casey was shot and killed as he unlocked his door and entered his home,” Walton continued in a statement. “As Casey lie on the ground dying, the unopened Subway sandwiches that he bought for himself and his family sat next to him in a pool of blood.”
Hours after his death, the keys he used to enter the house were still lodged in the door as a reminder of how close he was to safety. It’s hard to imagine a situation where a man walking through his front door carrying a bag of sandwiches would constitute a threat to the officer.
Goodson was a licensed concealed gun owner and had no criminal record besides some minor traffic violations.
The county sheriff’s deputies do not wear body cameras and there were no eyewitnesses.
“It was a horrific shooting, and a life was lost at the hands of a law enforcement officer,” Nana Watson, president of the Columbus chapter of the NAACP, said Wednesday.
“The Black community is up in arms. The community is very volatile now, and we don’t want that,” Watson added. “We need to get answers.”
“We’re tired. It’s traumatizing every day to wake up and see somebody that looks like you dying,” said activist Maria Holland, 31, a co-founder of the Black Liberation Movement Central Ohio. “I don’t feel like justice is being served.”
Goodson’s death is being investigated by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Columbus, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, the FBI in Cincinnati, and Columbus police to determine if any federal civil rights laws were violated.
Meade has been placed on leave.
You can follow the story on social media under #JusticeForCasey.
