A Franklin County jury is expected to start deliberating on whether or not to convict former Columbus police officer Adam Coy on charges of murder, reckless homicide and felonious assault for shooting and killing Andre Hill, an unarmed Black man, in December of 2020.
Attorneys began closing statements Wednesday afternoon after a police expert who testified for the prosecution wrapped up the trial's testimony.
Franklin County Assistant Prosecutor Anthony Pierson started closing statements.
"This case is not about someone who tells cops, 'I hate you, I'm going to stab you. I'm going to shoot you.' It's not about that. It's about a man who was following police orders and was killed for it," Pierson said.
Pierson said Coy shot Hill while Hill was listening to Coy's orders.
"Mr. Coy said, 'come out, show yourself.' That's exactly what (Hill) did. Showed himself. And he's shot four times," Pierson said.
Pierson didn't offer an explanation for why Coy shot Hill.
"I can't open (Coy's) brain and determine whether he was actually fearful or not, whether he was actually scared or not. But it actually doesn't matter. What matters is that a reasonable officer on the scene at that time used that force? Used deadly force. And the evidence has shown a reasonable officer would not have," Pierson said.
Defense attorney Mark Collins said Coy made a mistake and thought that Hill was holding a gun, and not the set of keys he was actually holding.
"The actual possession of a weapon is not relevant, as long as the officer reasonably believed the individual possessed a weapon. The law does not require officers to wait until an individual uses harm or starts to use harm or confirm the serious threat of harm exists. There is no checklist to say, 'I got to wait a certain amount, I've got to wait to see if there's just an actual serious threat.' No, that's not how they're trained," Collins said.
Collins said there's no other explanation for the shooting other than Coy made an honest mistake.
"We now know that the government's theory that somehow he shot an unarmed man and made the entire thing up after the fact. But that's perverse ladies and gentlemen. That's desperate ladies and gentlemen. That's the government ladies and gentlemen," Collins said.
Collins said prosecutors didn't prove Coy acted with recklessness.
"They have to prove recklessness beyond a reasonable doubt. At what point in this trial did you hear the term reckless ever used by any of the witnesses, by the government," Collins said.
The last witness the jury heard from was Seth Stoughton, an expert hired by prosecutors to analyze whether or not Coy's actions were justified when he shot Hill.
Stoughton disagreed with defense experts who testified Coy's mistake was reasonable, that he perceived a threat, even if Hill wasn't armed or threatening.
Stoughton testified an officer can have an honest fear, but that doesn't mean the mistake he made based on that fear is reasonable.
"Officers have to manage fear, especially when there is a threat. But just because someone is afraid or experiences fear does not mean that there is an actual imminent threat that justifies the use of force," he said. "They are human. They are perfectly prone to being afraid and feeling fear. But we can't predicate the use of force on the existence of fear, or the lack of existence of fear, because that's purely emotional as opposed to a threat being something that we can identify about the world."
Stoughton testified he doesn't see why Coy would have found Hill's behavior suspicious. His analysis found Coy acted unreasonably.
