An Ohio man whose motion-triggered video of the officer-involved shooting of Ma’Khia Bryant stated that the Columbus police officer “reacted with what he thought was his best judgment” and that “the video doesn’t lie.”
Donavon Brinson told Fox News host Harris Faulkner on Thursday that he did not view the shooting on Tuesday directly. But his home sits kitty-cornered across the street from where the shooting took place and his home-surveillance camera caught the scene as Bryant targeted another teen, apparently yelling that she would stab her.
Bryant reportedly assaulted two people, pushing one down and charging another with a knife allegedly raised and ready to descend, while yelling, “I’m gonna stab the f*ck out of you!” Officer Nicholas Reardon arrived on the scene at approximately 4:30 p.m. and yelled for everyone to get down multiple times before firing his weapon four times to stop Bryant from stabbing the girl to death. Officers unsuccessfully tried to resuscitate Bryant at the scene but she was later pronounced dead at a hospital.
Brinson told “Outnumbered” in a phone interview that he and his wife knew there was a fight between two girls going on outside but did not personally see what transpired before hearing the gunshots. Brinson recounted that he looked outside and “saw Ma’Khia on the ground, and everyone else kind of in chaos.”
(Video Credit: Fox News)
Brinson said he realized that he had a camera above his garage that has motion sensors and it would have caught the whole incident on video. He provided a copy of the footage to police.
The video is a wide-angle view of the shooting. It verifies that the Columbus, Ohio police officer had approximately nine seconds to make a decision to save a life and that he presumably took the only action left open to him.
“The video doesn’t lie,” Brinson declared. The officer “did what he thought was best.”
Bryant was 16 and a foster child. She was identified by her family as the girl who was shot after someone called the police over the altercation.
“This never should have happened,” Bryant’s mother, Paula Bryant, told 10TV in an emotional interview. “She’s a loving girl.”
Brinson said that the officer did not have much choice and that he “only had seconds to respond.”
“From my point of view watching this, unfortunately, the whole scenario put him in a bad spot regardless of what the situation was,” the neighbor told Faulkner.
He ticked off possible outcomes for the officer: “He could have either not fired and the young lady in pink could have got stabbed in the neck or would have been fatally injured and then responded and shot and that would have been two young ladies possibly dead, or he could have responded the way that he did and unfortunately one lady lost her life in the incident that probably could have been avoided.”
He also recounted that after coming home from a late lunch, that he and his wife had seen “a young lady in pink and another young lady out front exchanging words.”
“We didn’t think too much about it, but they were very, very loud. You could tell they were upset about something,” he recalled.
Brinson said that he saw one of the girls lock another out of the house “and they said something about, ‘How dare you lock me out of my mama’s house. This is my house too.’”
He explained that he thought the incident would be resolved “and it will be done and over with.” They heard the shots about five minutes later.
Another neighbor Ira Graham III, who is a photographer and videographer, said he heard the shots as well.
“I saw a bunch of cop cars coming down the street,” he recounted for The Columbus Dispatch. He also watched the police perform CPR on the girl and he saw the video of the altercation later.
“I believe in truth and facts. Video doesn’t lie,” he proclaimed. “She was in full attack mode.”
Bryant “was literally aiming a knife at this young lady,” Graham commented. “She needed to be stopped at that point. That young lady’s life was at stake.”
Officer Nicholas Reardon is now on leave pending an investigation. He has been on the force for 16 months and is a U.S. Air National Guardsman who was awarded an expert marksman badge.
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