The killing of John Crawford III occurred on August 5, 2014. Crawford was a 22-year-old
African-American
African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...
man shot and killed by a police officer in a
Walmart
Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores in the United States and 23 other ...
store in
Beavercreek,
Ohio
Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...
, near
Dayton
Dayton () is a city in Montgomery County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of cities in Ohio, sixth-most populous city in Ohio, with a population of 137,644 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The Dayton metro ...
, while he was holding a BB gun that was for sale in the store.
The shooting was captured on surveillance video and led to protests from groups including the
NAACP
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an American civil rights organization formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du&nbs ...
and the
Black Lives Matter
Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a Decentralization, decentralized political and social movement that aims to highlight racism, discrimination and Racial inequality in the United States, racial inequality experienced by black people, and to pro ...
movement.
A
grand jury
A grand jury is a jury empowered by law to conduct legal proceedings, investigate potential criminal conduct, and determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may subpoena physical evidence or a person to testify. A grand ju ...
declined to
indict the two officers involved on criminal charges.
The City of Beavercreek eventually settled civil claims for wrongful death brought by Crawford's
estate and family.
Killing
Crawford picked up an un-packaged BB/pellet air rifle inside the store's sporting goods section and continued shopping in the store. Another customer, Ronald Ritchie, called
9-1-1
911, sometimes written , is an emergency telephone number for Argentina, Canada, the Dominican Republic, Fiji, Jordan, Mexico, Pakistan, Maldives, Palau, Panama, Iraq, the Philippines, Sint Maarten, the United States, and Uruguay, as well as ...
claiming that Crawford had been pointing the gun at fellow customers. Security camera footage showed that Crawford was talking on his cellphone and holding the BB gun as he shopped, but at no point did he aim the BB gun at anyone. After the security camera footage was released, Ritchie recanted his statement that led to the fatal shooting and stated, "At no point did he shoulder the rifle and point it at somebody", while maintaining that Crawford was "waving it around".
Two officers of the Beavercreek Police arrived at the Walmart shortly after their dispatcher informed them of a "subject with a gun" in the pet supplies area of the store. Crawford was later pronounced dead at Dayton's
Miami Valley Hospital.
A second person, Angela Williams, died after suffering a heart attack while fleeing from the shooting.
Police account
According to initial accounts from Officer Williams and the other officer involved, David Darkow, Crawford did not respond to verbal commands to drop the BB gun and lie on the ground, and eventually began to move as if trying to escape. Believing the BB gun was a real firearm, one of the officers fired two shots into Crawford's torso and arm. Crawford died of his injuries shortly afterwards.
Store video
The shooting was captured by the store's security video camera.
Crawford was talking on his cell phone while holding the BB/Pellet air rifle when he was shot to death by Williams.
The video shows the officers fired almost immediately after entering the store and sighting Crawford holding the BB gun. From the video, it is unclear whether officers gave verbal commands, and whether Crawford was shot before or after he reacted to the officers.
Aftermath
''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' revealed in December that immediately after the shooting, detective Rodney Curd aggressively questioned Crawford's girlfriend, Tasha Thomas, threatening her with jail time. The interrogation caused her to sob uncontrollably, with hostile questions suggesting she was drunk or on drugs when she stated that Crawford did not enter the store with a gun. She was not yet aware of Crawford's death at the time of the interrogation. Thomas died in a car crash in
Dayton
Dayton () is a city in Montgomery County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of cities in Ohio, sixth-most populous city in Ohio, with a population of 137,644 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The Dayton metro ...
several months later on January 1, 2015.
Following the shooting, a
grand jury
A grand jury is a jury empowered by law to conduct legal proceedings, investigate potential criminal conduct, and determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may subpoena physical evidence or a person to testify. A grand ju ...
decided not to indict any of the officers involved on charges of either murder, reckless homicide, or negligent homicide.
The
U.S. Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the U.S. government that oversees the domestic enforcement of federal laws and the administration of justice. It is equi ...
(DOJ) conducted its own investigation.
Sean Williams, the officer who shot Crawford, was removed from normal duties until the federal investigation was complete. In 2017, the DOJ announced that it declined to seek federal charges against the officer, who returned to full duty soon after.
The 2017 DOJ report stated: "To establish willfulness, federal authorities would be required to show that the officer acted with the deliberate and specific intent to do something the law forbids. This is one of the highest standards of intent imposed by law. Mistake, misperception, negligence, necessity, or poor judgment are not sufficient to establish a federal criminal civil rights violation... ...To establish that Officer Williams acted willfully, the government would be required both to disprove his stated reason for the shooting – that he was in fear of death or serious bodily injury – and to affirmatively establish that Officer Williams instead acted with the specific intent to violate Mr. Crawford’s rights. The evidence here simply cannot satisfy those burdens. Accordingly, the review into this incident has been closed without prosecution."
Crawford's mother believes that the surveillance tape shows the police lied in their account of events,
and has spoken out against the killing at a "Justice for All" march. The family filed lawsuits for
negligence
Negligence ( Lat. ''negligentia'') is a failure to exercise appropriate care expected to be exercised in similar circumstances.
Within the scope of tort law, negligence pertains to harm caused by the violation of a duty of care through a neg ...
and
wrongful death
Wrongful death is a type of legal claim or cause of action against a person who can be held liable for a death. The claim is brought in a civil action, usually by close relatives, as authorized by statute. In wrongful death cases, survivors are ...
against Walmart, the city of Beavercreek, and the police officers involved.
In 2020, the city of Beavercreek and the family settled their suit for $1.7 million.
Ohio State Representative
Alicia Reece proposed a "John Crawford's Law", which would change the way toy guns look to prevent similar tragedies.
Ohio is an "
open carry
In the United States, open carry refers to the practice of visibly carrying a firearm in public places, as distinguished from Concealed carry in the United States, concealed carry, where firearms cannot be seen by the casual observer. To "carry ...
" state, in which the open carrying of firearms is legal with or without a license, which prompted discussion of
gun rights
The right to keep and bear arms (often referred to as the right to bear arms) is a legal right for people to possess weapons (arms) for the preservation of life, liberty, and property. The purpose of gun rights is for self-defense, as well as ...
and race.
Media reaction
The incident received local and international
coverage, in part due to the time of its occurrence; the then-recent police
shooting of Michael Brown
On August 9, 2014, 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis.
Brown was accompanied by his 22-year-old male friend Dorian Johnson. Wilson, a white male Fergu ...
in
Ferguson, Missouri
Ferguson is a city in St. Louis County, Missouri, St. Louis County, Missouri, United States. It is part of the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area. Per the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 18,527, and is predominantly Bla ...
and
the subsequent unrest there had attracted public attention, as did the death of
Eric Garner
On July 17, 2014, Eric Garner, an African American man, was killed in the New York City borough of Staten Island by Daniel Pantaleo, a New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer, after the latter put him in a prohibited chokehold while a ...
in
Staten Island
Staten Island ( ) is the southernmost of the boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County and situated at the southernmost point of New York (state), New York. The borough is separated from the ad ...
,
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
New York may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* ...
, and the
shooting of Tamir Rice
On November 22, 2014, Tamir E. Rice, a twelve year old African-American boy, was killed in Cleveland, Ohio, by Timothy Loehmann, a 26-year-old white patrolman with the Cleveland Division of Police (CDP). Rice was carrying a replica toy gun; Lo ...
in
Cleveland
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...
.
See also
*
*
Swatting
Swatting is a form of criminal harassment that involves deceiving an emergency service (via such means as hoaxing an emergency services dispatcher) into sending a police or emergency response team to another person's location. This is achieved ...
- the dispatching of emergency response teams based on false reports that there is an ongoing critical incident
*
Entertech shooting deaths
*
Shooting of Emantic Fitzgerald Bradford Jr.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crawford III, John
2014 controversies in the United States
2014 in Ohio
African-American-related controversies
African Americans shot dead by law enforcement officers in Ohio
August 2014 in the United States
Beavercreek, Ohio
Black Lives Matter
Law enforcement controversies in the United States
Protests in the United States
Walmart