Police in Ohio fatally shoot a 21-year-old pregnant shoplifting suspect

Friends comfort each other at a private candlelight vigil held for 21-year-old Ta'Kiya Young. Photo / AP

Police in a Columbus suburb fatally shot a pregnant woman in an Ohio supermarket parking lot after she accelerated her car toward an officer, police officials said.

Ta’Kiya Young, 21, of Columbus, died on Thursday evening in Blendon.

A supermarket employee told officers who were at the store on an unrelated matter that multiple people were fleeing from the store with stolen items, Blendon Police Chief John Belford said. That included Young who had allegedly taken multiple bottles of alcohol. One officer went to the driver’s side of Young’s car and told her to stop, Belford said, while the other officer moved in front of the vehicle.

Young then put the car in gear and accelerated forward, Belford said, and the officer directly in the vehicle’s path fired one shot through the front windshield. Young’s car then travelled about 15m before coming to a stop on the footpath outside the store.

Ta’Kiya Young was pregnant and due to give birth in November. Photo / AP

She was pronounced dead a short time later. Young was due to give birth in November, her family told The Columbus Dispatch. Her unborn daughter did not survive the shooting. Young was the mother of two sons, ages 6 and 3.

The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation is leading the investigation into the fatal shooting, Belford said.

The names of the two officers and further information about them — including their ages and race — have not been released. They are on paid administrative leave while the shooting is investigated, which is standard procedure in such incidents, Belford said.

Friends, family and activists gather to protest the shooting of 21-year-old Ta'Kiya Young. Photo / AP

The shooting was captured on police body cam video, but it wasn’t clear on Monday when that will be made public.

Young’s family told The Columbus Dispatch they have many questions about the shooting, mainly why she was deemed a lethal threat.

“She stole something from the store,” her grandmother, Nadine Young, told the newspaper. “You didn’t have to shoot the woman; she would have eventually gotten out of the … car. You didn’t have to kill her and the baby.”