COLUMBUS (WCMH) — The Columbus City Council approved a $10 million settlement with the family of a man shot and killed by a former Columbus Police Officer in December 2020.
Council approved the settlement Monday during its meeting. Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein announced the agreement Friday.
Hill, 47, was shot by Officer Adam Coy on Dec. 22. Coy was sent to the 1000 block of Oberlin Drive on a nonemergency call of a vehicle being turned on and off repeatedly during the overnight hours. Body camera footage showed Hill in the garage of a house where he was a guest. Coy yelled to a fellow officer that he thought Hill had a gun before firing.
Hill, who was unarmed, later died at a nearby hospital.
Columbus City Councilmember Shayla Favor called the settlement a small step toward justice, adding she does not want any family or the city to have to go through something like this again.
One of the points brought up by another councilmember was how does one even negotiate when a life was lost.
Columbus Department of Safety Director Ned Pettus Jr. apologized on the department’s behalf, saying Hill should still be alive and that the department will do better.
“I have been involved in these circumstances in the past and nothing can compare with the process of trying to address these concerns, but I must take this opportunity to say that no amount of money can make this right,” said city councilmember Mitchell Brown. “Nothing can replace the loss of this father, brother, and friend.”
On Friday, family attorney Ben Crump called the settlement the largest for a pretrial excessive use of force case in Ohio during a news conference discussing the settlement, and Hill’s daughter, Karissa, spoke of the pain of knowing her father laid on the ground after being shot for several minutes.
“You have to remember how my dad died,” Karissa Hill said Friday. “He died on a 311 call, nonemergency. He was shot four times. And after the four times, he was laying on the floor. There were 22 officers on scene. Nobody helped my father.
“The money is not even enough to help how the pain or anything of my dad laying on that floor. We don’t know what was going through his conscious mind as the police officers were checking his pockets and handcuffing him rather than trying to help him while the hospital was three minutes away.”
Columbus will also name a gym at the Brentnell Community Center after Hill. It was a place where his daughter said the two shared many memories.
