This summer, Donovan Lewis shoved his wife LaTonya Lewis out of a chair at a park, she said, so she fled and called police. The call set off a devastating chain of events that culminated last week, when Donovan, 20, was shot and killed by police at 2:30 a.m. in the bed the couple shared. LaTonya was at work. The shooting in Columbus, Oh., is the latest high-profile incident to rekindle anger over police tactics toward Black people, particularly the use of nighttime raids. Police had arrived at Donovan’s apartment with warrants for his arrest. They were acting on misdemeanor charges of domestic violence and assault stemming from LaTonya’s call in August, along with a year-old felony charge for improper handling of a firearm in a vehicle, the Washington Post reports.
In body-camera footage released by authorities, officers knock on the apartment door multiple times and identify themselves before two men come out and are handcuffed. Then an officer handling a police dog opens the door to the room where Donovan slept. A bright light illuminates Donovan starting to sit up, and the officer immediately fires his weapon. Donovan was unarmed. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigations has launched a probe into the killing. The officer who shot Donovan was Ricky Anderson, a 30-year veteran of the force assigned to the canine unit. Mark Collins, a lawyer for Anderson, said the officer saw an object in Donovan’s hand that he believed was a gun. After Donovan was shot, body-camera footage shows a vape pen lying on the bed.
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