The officer who shot and killed Ryan Hinton May 1 won't face charges from Hamilton County prosecutors.
Attorneys for the Hinton family say they'll file a civil suit over the 18-year-old's death.
Hinton was one of four people fleeing from a stolen car at an apartment complex in Price Hill when the shooting occurred.
Cincinnati Police say Hinton aimed a gun at the officer. CPD hasn't named that officer, citing Marsy's Law.
Body camera footage is blurry and hard to see. In it, Hinton stumbles and falls before running between two dumpsters. An officer shoots him within seconds of Hinton emerging from those dumpsters. Police say a handgun was recovered at the scene.
At a news conference Tuesday, Hamilton County Prosecutor Connie Pillich showed body camera footage in which an officer cries, "he has a gun" and showed photos from Hinton's phone in which he is holding the unusual beige-colored handgun.
Pillich says Hinton's shooting was justified.
"When Ryan Hinton was confronted by officers about a stolen car, he not only had a gun, with a fully loaded magazine and a bullet in the chamber, but he pointed it at Officer A," Pillich said.
Hinton family's response
In a news conference immediately after the announcement, Hinton's family decried the finding. They commissioned an independent investigation into his death last month.
"We all saw Ryan running," his cousin Marlyn Howard said. "How can you be threatened by someone running?"
Hinton family attorney Fanon Rucker said the family would file a lawsuit.
"What I heard from our prosecutor today was a word that confuses and astounds but does not surprise me," Rucker said. "And that word is 'justified.' "
Rucker said body camera footage of the shooting does not show Hinton carrying or pointing a gun. He asserted that the officer who shot Hinton was in plain clothes.
Rucker told reporters the identities of the responding officers are known to the family's attorneys and that they also have their backgrounds, personnel files, and complaints lodged against them via the Citizens Complaint Authority. He said some of that material calls into question the veracity of the officer involved.
"What is that officer's background? We know it," Rucker said. "And we know his jacket with the Citizens Complaint Authority and internal investigations is not empty. And we ask the question: Why is his word the credible word the prosecutor is willing to take in such a serious matter?"
Rucker did not name any of the officers who responded that day or share specifics about their records. He said that information would be part of the forthcoming wrongful death lawsuit.
Rucker also questioned why Pillich didn't take the case to a grand jury to decide if charges were warranted. He pointed out other counties in Ohio, including Butler County, take all officer-involved shootings to a grand jury.
Other reactions
Police Chief Teresa Theetge thanked Pillich for conducting a "serious and thorough" investigation.
"This is not time for us to take a victory lap," Theetge told reporters in a separate media availability. "This is about recognizing that the decision the officers made that day was justified based on what they knew they were dealing with in those few, few seconds."
Civil rights groups, meanwhile, decried the decision.
The Cincinnati NAACP released a statement June 18 saying it was "undeniably disheartened" by Pillich's report.
"The Cincinnati Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People find the report lacking one key element, which we believe our community was looking for, which is video evidence that supports the officers claim that Ryan Hinton pointed his weapon at Officer A," the statement read. "...Even if we accept that Ryan Hinton committed a crime of car theft, which is a serious crime that needs to be addressed and punished, fleeing the scene of a crime should not require a death sentence. We did not see video evidence that corroborates the officers claim that the weapon was pointed at him, which is the basis of his stance that he needed to fire first before the suspect fired at him."
The Urban League's Holloman Center for Social Justice issued a statement saying Pillich's decision "has shaken our community's trust."
"Prosecutor Connie Pillich’s decision not to refer this case to a grand jury marks the fourth officer-involved shooting under her tenure that has bypassed this critical measure of citizen oversight," the statement reads. "While the Prosecutor cited a thorough investigation of body-worn camera footage and internal criminal legal review compliant with the law to support her conclusion, we believe this process shortchanges a grieving family, a hurting community, and the public’s right to full transparency and independent accountability."
Pillich's process
In her announcement, Pillich said her office was well-equipped to carry out the investigation without outside help.
She asserted it was clear Hinton was carrying the gun found near him after the shooting. Pillich said the gun had 22 bullets in an extended clip and another in the chamber.
She also shared testimony from the involved officers.
"I fired before he could fire at me," the officer who shot Hinton told investigators.
Pillich said her office received the final forensics report on Hinton's death this week, providing the final piece of the investigation.
A preliminary autopsy by the Hamilton County Coroner's Office released last month said Hinton had three bullet wounds. One was a flesh wound in his left forearm. Another entered his left side near his armpit, hit his left ventricle and a rib before exiting his body near his sternum. The coroner believes this was the lethal wound and said those wounds could have been caused by one or two rounds.
Pillich maintains her office's investigation was exhaustive.
"It was a tremendous amount of work to go through these videos frame by frame, second by second," Pillich said. "We took our time. I had my top criminal lawyers working with me."
What's next
Other investigations into the shooting are ongoing. That includes a review by the Citizen Complaint Authority and an internal CPD investigation.
"The criminal investigation always takes precedence," Theetge said. "Once that is finished, then the other one will begin. These, typically, we're looking [at] sometimes eight months or so."
The completed internal report will then be presented to the Critical Incident Review Board, which reviews all firearm discharge incidents.
"That is really to just focus on as a department, is there anything we should change in our training, in our tactics, anything like that," Theetge said. "That is not about the individual officer. That is more of a holistic approach to us as a department, to make sure that we are always doing the best practices."
Mayor Aftab Pureval said in a statement he respects the prosecutor's decision. "Both internally at CPD and through the Citizen Complaint Authority, we will still be continuing our parallel independent investigations in order to honor the goals of the Collaborative Agreement."
Hinton's father, Rodney Hinton, Jr., faces murder charges. He's accused of hitting a Hamilton County Sheriff's deputy with his car and killing him shortly after viewing body camera footage of his son's shooting.
WVXU reporter Becca Costello contributed to this article.
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