The hearse that circled the streets surrounding Columbus City Hall Monday evening had no dead to transport.
The Cadillac, in fact, was nowhere near large enough to accommodate all the people those in the procession had come to mourn all of them killed by Columbus police.
As an estimated 50 cars drove in a loop blaring their horns, a group of faith leaders assembled outside City Hall to call for an end to the fatal shootings that they say were the result of aggressive if not racist policing practices. We re standing against policing without compassion. We re standing against policing without mercy. We re standing against policing without grace, said the Rev. Edward Lewis, pastor of Bethany Presbyterian Church on the Near East Side. We re standing against policing that is bereft of humanity.
Flanked by members of Bryant s family, organizer Hana Abdur-Rahim struck a somber tone before those gathered on a sunny April Sunday afternoon. Today we are here to continue to lift up the life of Ma Khia Bryant, she told the crowd. I don t need a video to know she was a child and she deserved to live.
She then introduced a woman named Myra Duke who said she was Bryant s aunt. Speaking to the crowd, Duke thanked them for their dedication to her niece and expressed how sorely the girl s family misses her. It doesn t seem real, said Duke, who later declined to talk to the Dispatch but said she lives out of town. Ma Khia was an angel. This situation didn t have to happen like this; the system failed her.
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