An Ohio jury acquitted a police officer of murder and other charges on Friday, just over two years after he killed a pregnant woman by shooting through the windshield of her moving car in a supermarket parking lot.
Relatives of the woman, Ta’Kiya Young, 21, doubled over and sobbed as a judge read aloud the words “not guilty” on all six charges that the officer, Connor Grubb, faced. “It’s not right!” one woman cried. “He gets to walk away free.”
Officer Grubb hugged his lawyer and left the courtroom.
The trial hinged on whether Officer Grubb was justified in using deadly force when he shot Ms. Young once in the chest as she drove toward him and appeared to hit him outside a Kroger supermarket in Blendon Township, Ohio, on Aug. 24, 2023. Ms. Young, who was about six months pregnant, had been accused of stealing liquor from the supermarket. She was pronounced dead at a hospital, according to her family’s lawyers. Her fetus did not survive.
Officer Grubb, a former Marine who had been a full-time officer for about four years, was initially charged with four counts each of murder and felonious assault and two counts of involuntary manslaughter. A judge this week dismissed two of the murder counts and two of the assault counts that were related to Ms. Young’s fetus, saying there was no evidence that Officer Grubb knew she was pregnant when he shot her.
At the trial in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas in Columbus, Ohio, this month, expert witnesses analyzed in minute detail security-camera and body-camera footage of the shooting as prosecutors and the defense disputed whether Officer Grubb was in imminent danger when he fired at Ms. Young.
Prosecutors told the jury that Officer Grubb’s use of deadly force was “utterly unnecessary to defend himself” from Ms. Young’s car, and that video footage of the shooting showed that she was turning the wheel away from him as she drove forward.
“He was easily able to step aside to avoid harm, and avoiding harm had nothing to do with his decision to discharge his firearm,” Richard F. Glennon, a prosecutor, told the jury. “He wasn’t defending his life, or anyone else’s. He was simply stopping her.”
Officer Grubb’s lawyer, Kaitlyn Stephens, told the jury that Officer Grubb was justified in using deadly force because “a 3,500-pound car can cause serious physical harm or death” and can be “weaponized into a deadly weapon in a matter of split seconds.”
Officer Grubb “was doing his job when he was run down and hit by a 3,500-pound deadly weapon,” Ms. Stephens said.
Officer Grubb did not take the stand. But a special agent from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, Kyle Douglass, read aloud from the witness stand a written statement that Officer Grubb had provided to investigators, justifying his decision to shoot Ms. Young.
“At the time I fired my weapon, I was in fear for my life, as the suspect had just struck me with her vehicle,” Officer Grubb’s statement said. “My feet were no longer on the ground and the top half of my body was on the hood of her car. Immediately before I fired, the suspect had ignored repeated commands to get out of the car and, instead of complying, accelerated her vehicle directly at me and struck me.”
Officer Grubb and another officer had walked up to Ms. Young’s car after a Kroger worker accused her of shoplifting, according to body-camera footage that the police released last year. The other officer told Ms. Young to get out of the car and said that she was being accused of stealing, but she remained behind the wheel and told the officer that she had not stolen anything, the video shows.
Officer Grubb then walked directly in front of the car, commanded her to get out and drew his gun as she turned the wheel, the video shows. As Ms. Young drove forward, and appeared to hit Officer Grubb with the front bumper of her car, he fired into the windshield, killing Ms. Young, whose car rolled slowly forward and crashed into the Kroger, the video shows.
Mr. Glennon said he would not dispute that Ms. Young had shoplifted. But Officer Grubb did not need to step in front of her car and draw his gun to investigate that crime, an expert witness hired by the prosecution told the jury.
“Absolutely no one should have been killed for taking the actions that Ta’Kiya took that day,” Mr. Glennon said.
The killing of Ms. Young, who was Black, touched off protests and calls by the Columbus branch of the N.A.A.C.P. for Officer Grubb, who is white, to be fired. He has remained on the force, but was placed on unpaid leave, the town’s police chief, John C. Belford, said in an email this month.
Nadine Young, Ms. Young’s grandmother, said last year that she was raising Ms. Young’s two young sons while mourning the death of her granddaughter. She said Ms. Young was expecting a baby girl when she was killed and had filled her garage with pink baby clothes.
Ms. Young was “the life of everything,” the grandmother said. “She was the smile. She was the life of the party, you know. And she did all she could for her babies.”
In August, Ms. Young’s family filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Officer Grubb and Kroger that described the shooting as “outrageous and indefensible.” The lawsuit is still pending.
Michael Levenson covers breaking news for The Times from New York.
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