Faith leaders in Columbus are angry.
They say they fear for the moral conscience of the city and Franklin County after county Sheriff s deputy Jason Meade fatally shot Casey Goodson Jr., a 23-year-old Black man, on Dec. 4 and after years of other examples of what they see as law enforcement s racist behavior.
A group of those leaders have come together to question law enforcement actions, encourage prayer and take action against what they say are problems of racism, inequality and a lack of accountability. People are not constantly going to watch their loved ones be killed and say nothing, said Bishop Timothy Clarke, senior pastor at First Church of God on the Southeast Side. This has to stop.
If there is a best practice for the handling of shootings of civilians by law enforcement, the investigation into the death of Casey C. Goodson Jr. is not it.
For more than a week now, four separate law enforcement agencies have batted around responsibility for the investigation like children swatting shuttlecocks around a grade-school gymnasium.
Where to begin?
We have had the city of Columbus, which was not involved in the shooting but tasked with investigating it, ask for the assistance of the state. For a brief period it seems they were told, yes, until Attorney General Dave Yost stepped in and said no.