An Ohio police officer was recently indicted for the killing of 21-year-old Ta’Kiya Young, a pregnant woman who was falsely accused of shoplifting.
Blendon Township Police Officer Connor Grubb faces up to four counts of murder, four counts of felonious assault and two counts of involuntary manslaughter with the grand jury’s recent indictment.
On Aug. 24 last year, Grubb was caught on camera body footage approaching Young and accusing her of shoplifting alcohol. When Grubb and another police officer went towards her car, she moved her car forward after turning the steering wheel a little to the right. Before her murder, she could be heard asking the officers, “Are you going to shoot me?”
Grubb proceeded to shoot his gun with the bullet hitting Young in the chest. Neither the mother nor her unborn daughter survived.
Footage then shows the officers approaching Young’s side of the car, reportedly to give medical assistance. Medical assistance was not shown on camera.
Per the Young family’s attorney representative Sean Walton, a witness in the case also confirmed that Young was seen leaving the bottles of alcohol the police officers were accusing her of stealing.
“Today marks a solemn victory in the pursuit of justice for Ta’Kiya Young and her unborn daughter, whose lives were tragically and unjustly taken at the hands of Blendon Township Police Officer Connor Grub,” said Walton in a statement.“The actions that led to the death of Ta’Kiya — the unnecessary aggression, the chilling commands that amounted to ‘comply or die’ — were there for us all to witness in dreadful clarity. Ta’Kiya’s life and that of her daughter were extinguished in an act of brutality, becoming yet another symbol of the urgent need for reform in police conduct and accountability.”
***UPDATE: Killer cop Connor Grubb was just indicted on 4 counts of murder for killing Ta'Kiya Young exactly one year ago. The new info and bodycam have been added to her page linked here.https://t.co/G4aqcgUh1E pic.twitter.com/UiWKNPuN8J
— IncarcerNation.com (@IncarcerNation) August 13, 2024
The latest development in Young’s case comes as police brutality against Black Americans is on the rise. Per the nonprofit Mapping Police Violence, out of 1,055 people who were killed by the police in 2021, 27% of those fatally shot were Black, making them twice as likely to be victims of police brutality.
This year, Black Americans were reported as being nearly three times more likely to be fatally shot by police officers, indicating an increase in police brutality.
Overall, 809 people have been killed by the police thus far this year.
Out of the 226 days that have passed already in 2024, there have only been 10 days when no person was killed by the police nationwide.