OHIO — An Ohio Gun Owners rally to support the Columbus police officer who shot and killed Ma'Khia Bryant, a Black 16-year-old, last Tuesday has been postponed over concerns of counter protesters.
Officer Nicholas Reardon shot Bryant when she attempted to stab two other individuals, according to authorities. Reardon has been placed on administrative leave pending the results of the investigation.
The host of the rally, Chris Dorr, a gun rights activist who also led rallies to push back against COVID-19 restrictions, said on the group's Facebook page said they applied for a permit with the Capital Square Review and Advisory Board asking for barrier fencing around the whole event at the Ohio Statehouse. Law enforcement was made aware of counter protests.
Then on Thursday, Dorr said he got a call from Ohio State Highway Patrol lawyers saying the group was not permitted to use fencing to keep out counter protesters.
"It is a recipe for disaster," said Dorr, and they plan to reschedule.
Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Ohio Senate candidate Josh Mandel were slated to appear at the event.
"We have to let Antifa and Black Lives Matter and some of these violent protesters into our event, and they have equal right to stand there and say what they want to and antagonize our members and our supporters, all the people there to back the blue? Our legal counsel says yes," Dorr said in the video.
Bryant's death circulated the nation as it happened nearly a half hour before the guilty verdict of Derek Chauvin, who was convicted of murdering George Floyd. Since then, Columbus Andrew Mayor Ginther requested the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate the police department to look for any racial disparities and come up with solutions for better reform.
"The city of Columbus is committed to reform," Ginther wrote in the letter to the DOJ. "We must align with the reality of how we are policing with community expectations of how we should be policing."
Bryant is among the five Black children killed by police in Columbus since 2016, according to a database from the Washington Post. The deaths include Joseph Jewell, 17, in February 2020; Abdirahman Salad, 15, in January 2020; Julius Ervin Tate, 16, in December 2018; and Tyre King, 13, in September 2016.
Columbus is also at the center of two other high-profile shootings: Andre Hill, who was shot and killed by a police officer in December, and Casey Goodson Jr., who was shot and killed by a Franklin County Sheriff's Office deputy.
The Justice Department recently announced it’s opening probes into policing in Louisville, Kentucky, over the March 2020 death of Breonna Taylor, and in Minneapolis following last year’s death of George Floyd.