Columbus police shoot and kill teenage girl minutes before Derek Chauvin verdict announced

A teenage girl, appears to wield a knife during an altercation before being shot by a police officer

(AP)

Police shot and killed a black teenage girl in Ohio shortly before the verdict was announced in the Derek Chauvin trial.

Law officials showed bodycam footage at a news conference of an officer shooting the girl in Columbus after she appears to charge with a knife at two people outside a house in a residential street.

On-lookers in the video can be heard shouting “she’s just a kid,” before moving away to give police room to check the teenager’s wounds.

Officers were responding to an attempted stabbing call when one shot the girl at about 4.45pm local time. The 911 caller reported a female was trying to stab them before hanging up, police said.

Family members identified the dead girl as Ma’Khia Bryant, 16, right, according to local media.

The teenager, who was reportedly in foster care, was taken to Mount Carmel East in a critical condition where she was pronounced dead at 5.21pm, the Columbia Dispatch reported.

Protesters gathered outside the city’s police headquarters last night to demand answers over the teenager’s death, which Columbus mayor Andrew Ginther described as “heartbreaking”.

The shooting happened 25 minutes before a judge read the verdict convicting former Minneapolis police officer Chauvin of murder and manslaughter in the killing of George Floyd.

Interim Columbus police chief Michael Woods said the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation had launched an investigation.

He and the city’s public safety director Ned Pettus Jr appealed for calm while the inquiry continued into what he called “a devastating” loss of life and said the officer who shot the girl “would be taken off the street” pending the investigation.

Mr Pettus said: “BCI will conduct a fully independent investigation, which will be made public.”

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