Rallying at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus Dec. 19, dozens of people protested the killing of Casey Goodson Jr. by Franklin County, Ohio, sheriff’s deputy Jason Meade. Tamala Payne, Goodson’s mother, has led protests demanding authorities charge Meade for the killing.
Goodson, a 23-year-old Black man, was shot dead on his grandmother’s doorstep as he was returning home after a dentist appointment and picking up sandwiches for her and his 5-year-old brother Dec. 4. Goodson was a laid-off truck driver who was working at a Gap store.
“He didn’t do anything. And he was killed and murdered, cold-bloodedly,” Payne told the press Dec. 10.
Eighteen days after Goodson was gunned down there is no evidence that Meade has been interviewed by authorities about the killing. When WCMH-TV asked a representative of Southern Ohio U.S. Attorney David DeVillers if Meade had been interviewed, he could not confirm he had.
The record of police dispatch calls show that arriving cops ordered Goodson’s family to keep away from where he lay dying in the house, making it impossible for them to render medical or other assistance to him.
“My grandson just got shot in the back when he come in the house,” Goodson’s grandmother, Sharon Payne, reported to a 911 operator. “I don’t know if he’s OK.”
“They’re threatening everybody in the house,” Payne told the dispatcher.
Meade is part of a police fugitive task force that had been searching the area. But the day he confronted and then killed Goodson he was by himself in an unmarked vehicle. Goodson was not the object of any police investigation. The family refutes police claims that Goodson was waving a gun in the air. He did have a gun, but Ohio is an open-carry state and Goodson had a valid concealed handgun license.
Meade is on administrative leave. He gave a sermon at the 2018 Ohio State Association of Free Will Baptists convention, saying “People I hit, you wish you could hit. Trust me, right?”
A preliminary autopsy ruled Goodson’s death a homicide. The family has ordered their own autopsy, saying he was shot at least three times in the back.
In the midst of this, Andre Hill, a 47-year-old Black man, was shot and killed by a Columbus cop who had been dispatched to check out a nonemergency noise complaint Dec. 22. The man was visiting a friend, was in his garage, and walked toward police with a cellphone — not a weapon — in hand. The footage “documents a delay in rendering first-aid to the man,” Columbus Department of Public Safety said.