Photo: Franklin County Jail, Rhonda Hall/Facebook
Former Columbus, Ohio, police officer Ricky Anderson pleaded guilty Thursday (September 3) to reckless homicide in the 2022 shooting death of 20-year-old Donovan Lewis, a Black man who was lying in bed when officers arrived at his apartment, according to The Associated Press.
Anderson, who was a Columbus police K-9 officer at the time, had faced murder and reckless homicide charges in Lewis’ death. He entered an Alford plea to the lesser reckless homicide charge, acknowledging prosecutors had enough evidence to support a conviction without admitting guilt.
Prosecutors agreed to drop the murder charge as part of the plea deal, according to the AP.
Police went to Lewis’ apartment around 2 a.m. on August 30, 2022, to serve arrest warrants. Anderson opened the bedroom door and fired, striking Lewis.
Body-camera footage appears to show Anderson firing within a second of opening the door, an attorney for Lewis’ family said.
Anderson’s attorneys have maintained that evidence would have shown the shooting was justified.
Anderson will be sentenced at a later date and could receive probation or up to three years in prison, according to ABC 6.
For Lewis’ family, the plea represents accountability but not the justice they believe he deserved.
“I know that we need to look at it as a win. He is guilty. He has pleaded guilty, but it is not a win,” Lewis’ mother, Rebecca Duran, told ABC 6. “It’s not even near what I feel like should have happened or what Donovan deserved.”
The family’s attorney, Rex Elliott, also questioned whether the plea amounted to justice, telling the AP, “Nothing that happens to him will bring Donovan back.”
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