As new video offered a fresh vantage point of the killing of Donovan Lewis, a 20-year-old Black man fatally shot in bed last month by a Columbus Police officer while possibly holding a vape pen, the slain man’s family issued a fresh call for justice.
“I want to see real action,” Lewis’ mother, Rebecca Duran, said during a Thursday press conference outside of Columbus City Hall, noting that she was at a “loss for words.”
“There’s the colloquial saying, ‘Don’t talk about it, be about it.’ Let’s see something happen, not just conversation and conversation.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Duran’s demand for “justice for Donovan” came as the Columbus Division of Police released new body-camera footage showing the painful aftermath of the early morning Aug. 30 incident. In the footage, Duran is seen explaining to an officer at the scene that she received a call from Lewis’ girlfriend about the shooting—and asks which hospital her son was taken to.
When an officer admits he does not know, Duran is heard screaming: “How do you fucking not know you were there? You guys have police radios.”
“How could they call his girlfriend and not me?” she added, before repeating, “Oh my god” with her hands on her head.
The mother is then seen explaining in the footage that her son is “mentally ill” and that she had “begged” for help for him for years. On Thursday, Duran explained that she tried “consistently” to get Lewis to see counselors and psychiatrists for a majority of his life.
“He was special and different and good and bad from the beginning. It fell on deaf ears and I do believe some of that was because of the color of his skin,” Duran said of the past attempts at getting help, noting that “Donovan had the biggest heart.”
“People thought it was a discipline issue and not a mental health situation,” she added.
The Columbus Division of Police said that the incident began around 2:30 a.m. when officers attempted to serve a felony warrant at a second-floor apartment on Sullivant Avenue. Court records show that officers were attempting to serve Lewis with a warrant for misdemeanor charges of domestic violence, improperly handling a firearm, and assault. According to an Aug. 10 criminal complaint filed in Franklin County Municipal Court, Lewis’ girlfriend told police that she was pregnant with his child—and that the two had an argument at Westgate Park, where he shoved her.
Body-camera footage initially released the day of the shooting showed that after knocking for about eight minutes and apprehending two other people in the apartment, officers went into a back bedroom where Lewis was sleeping—and that he was shot about a second after the door was opened. Lewis had one hand raised as Officer Ricky Anderson, who had a K-9, fired a single gunshot.
The additional body-camera video released Thursday shows a different angle of the shooting, with Lewis moving around in the bed in apparent pain after being shot. Officers can be heard yelling at him to show them his hands while he is squirming around and apparently attempting to comply.
Footage then shows two officers handcuffing a wounded Lewis and carrying him out of the apartment before rendering aid, at one point suggesting he was resisting. Lewis was pronounced dead at a local hospital shortly afterward, and a copy of the search warrant and evidence receipt shows that no firearms were found at Lewis’ apartment after the incident.
A vape pen, however, was collected from his bed.
Columbus attorney Rex Elliott, who is representing the family, stressed Thursday that Lewis was still “out of it” when officers burst into his room.
“There were police and dogs in his apartment,” Elliott said. The lawyer claimed that it took six minutes for authorities to render a medical aid on the 20-year-old.
Neither Anderson’s lawyers nor a spokesperson for the police department immediately responded to a request for comment Thursday.
The footage released Thursday shows that after Lewis was eventually transported to the hospital, several officers stood around as Duran approached them hysterically asking where she could find her son. When an officer explained they were still trying to identify the individuals involved in the incident, Duran replied: “I know it’s him, the police called [his girlfriend].”
“The police called her and said that he died and they revived him and they were still working on him and he was unresponsive,” she added. Earlier this week, LaTonya Lewis spoke to the Washington Post about losing her boyfriend and father of her child—and the guilt she feels knowing her call to police about their argument could have spurred a chain of events that led to his death.
“He was a really good person,” the 30-year-old, who happens to share the same last name with Lewis, told the outlet. “I never wanted him to get in trouble. I wanted him to figure out his life. I’ll never understand this.”
Anderson, who has been on the force for 30 years and is in the Canine Unit, has been placed on leave pending an investigation of the shooting. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation has also opened an investigation into Lewis’ death. Funeral services for Lewis will be open on Saturday afternoon at the Christian Valley Missionary Baptist Church.
“The officer needs to be fired. Not on paid leave, not on vacation. We are not on vacation, he should not be on vacation,” Duran stressed Thursday.
