To Protect and Serve? When Whitehill resident Andrea accidentally cut her arm on glass, her sister frantically called 911, "I need a paramedic." Columbus Police Officer Jon Thomas responded to the house where he pulled out his gun and shot toward the family's dog (which he claims ran toward him), missed, and hit Andrea's four-year-old daughter Ava in the leg, shattering her bone.
As The Columbus Dispatch reports [2], Andrea also revealed that the cop never apologized or asked if Ava was okay and immediately left after shooting her.
A Columbus police officer accidentally wounded a 4-year-old girl in Whitehall on Friday when he fired at a charging dog, police said.
A neighbor and the girl’s uncle identified her as Ava Ellis, who was taken to Nationwide Children’s Hospital, where police said she was in stable condition.
The officer was at a house in the 4100 block of Chandler Drive investigating a hit-and-run case about 3:10 p.m., Columbus police spokeswoman Denise Alex-Bouzounis said.
As the officer was walking from the home to his patrol car, a woman a few houses away called out to him, saying her sister and the girl’s mother, Andrea Ellis, had cut herself.
The officer was at the doorway when a dog charged at him, Alex-Bouzounis said.
The officer fired once, missing the animal but striking the girl in the right leg. It was unclear whether the girl was hit directly or by a ricochet. The officer has not been identified.
Neighbors say the officer walked back to his patrol car after the shooting.
“He seemed a little disoriented, like he was really bothered,” said Norman Jones, who called the police after hearing the shot. Columbus and Whitehall police arrived at the scene shortly afterward.
“Mommy, am I gonna die?” four-year-old Ava Ellis asked her mother.
The family created a Facebook page for Ava. [3]
[4]
As Salon reports, [5] her mother Andrea wrote her account of the incident in a post. She names the police officer who shot her child, Jonathan Thomas, and says that, as soon as he saw the dog, who was eight to 10 feet away from him, he fired — in the direction of her eight-year-old niece and Ava.
Officer Thomas claimed that the dog charged at him, but Andrea’s sister Brandie denies this, and says the pet was in the house when he shot at it.
Andrea also revealed that the cop never apologized or asked if the four-year-old was okay and immediately left after shooting her. Neighbors have corroborated this account. Ava’s mother wrote:
“Officer Thomas then told my sister to stop yelling at him and walked back to his vehicle. Officer Thomas never said sorry, never said it was an accident, never said that he called for help or was going to call for help, never asked if Ava was ok, and never asked if he could check on Ava. Officer Thomas went back to his vehicle and started to pull away. My neighbors have even verified that he started pulling away before any help was there. Officer Thomas shot Ava and left knowing he shot Ava and not knowing the condition she was in.”
The young girl was taken to a nearby hospital, and is in stable condition. The Inquisitr reported [6] that Ava started school in a wheelchair, and may walk with a limp for the rest of her life... and will likely forever mistrust the police...
