(Reuters) -An Ohio grand jury voted against indicting police officers in the shooting death of an unarmed Black man in Akron last year, the state attorney general said on Monday, as the city prepared for a fresh round of protests against alleged police misconduct.
Eight Akron police officers shot Jayland Walker 46 times, including five times in the back, last June. An autopsy found that Walker had no drugs or alcohol in his system.
The shooting took place after officers attempted to pull over Walker’s car for a traffic violation. Walker, 25, fled in his vehicle and officers gave chase for seven minutes during which time they saw a firearm discharge from his car, police said.
Walker then jumped out of the moving vehicle and ran. Officers caught up to him in a parking lot, where they opened fire, believing that he posed a deadly threat to them, police said. A gun was later found in Walker’s vehicle, police said.
“The grand jury concluded that the officers were legally justified in their use of force,” Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said at a press conference.
The panel found Walker had shot at officers with a gun that he recently purchased, and the officers had initially used non-lethal Tasers in an attempt to stop him, Yost added.
(Reporting by Tyler Clifford; Editing by Mark Porter)
