A former Ohio police officer was found guilty of murder for killing an unarmed man who emerged from a darkened garage while holding a cellphone and a large set of keys.
Adam Coy, a 17-year veteran of the Columbus police force, shot Andre Hill four times while responding to a neighbor’s noise complaint on Dec. 22, 2020. He was charged with murder, felonious assault, and reckless homicide.
On Monday, almost four years after the shooting, a jury in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas delivered a verdict that found Coy guilty of all charges.
Prosecutors asked that Coy be sentenced immediately, but Franklin County Judge Stephen McIntosh set Nov. 25 as the sentencing date. The former officer faces a possible life sentence in prison.
During the trial, Coy told jurors that he feared for his life because he thought he saw a silver revolver coming up in Hill’s right hand as the man walked towards him. He said it was only after the shooting that he realized he mistook a set of keys for a gun.
“I thought I was going to die,” Coy testified. “I knew at that point I made a mistake. I was horrified.”
Coy had not activated the camera on what started as a nonemergency call, but a “look-back” feature recorded 60 seconds of video with no audio before the officer flipped the device on. The footage then shows him walking around for several minutes as more police officers arrived at the scene.
Bodycam footage from police officer Amy Detweiler, who was with Coy at the time of the shooting, shows two other Columbus officers rolling Hill over and putting handcuffs on him before leaving him alone again. None of the officers attempted first aid as Hill lay bleeding on the garage floor. Hill was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Coy was fired days after the deadly encounter for failing to activate his body camera before the confrontation and for not providing medical aid to Hill.
Prosecutors said Hill had followed the officer’s commands and was never a threat to the officers.
“We’re taught do what the cops tell you to do, and you can survive that encounter,” Franklin County Assistant Prosecutor Anthony Pierson said during closing arguments. “That’s not what happened here.”
The officer’s attorneys argued that Hill’s lack of a weapon did not matter because Coy thought his life was in danger. “He wasn’t reckless, he was reasonable,” said attorney Mark Collins.
Also advocating on Coy’s behalf was the Ohio chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, which argued that the case was “marked by political influence and bias” as it involved a white officer killing a black man at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther, who pressured the police department to fire Coy in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, on Monday said he stood by that call.
In May 2021, Columbus reached a $10 million settlement with Hill’s family, a payout reported to be the largest in the city’s history.
