COLUMBUS, Ohio — Nearly two years after Donovan Lewis was fatally shot by Columbus Police inside his bedroom, his estate is filing a complaint in federal court against the city and its police chief.

What You Need To Know

  • Attorneys representing the estate of Donovan Lewis filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against the city of Columbus and Columbus Division of Police Chief Elaine Bryant

  • The lawsuit alleges a history of targeting minorities and using excessive force, proposing 11 reforms to help change the culture at the division of police

  • In Aug. 2022, Donovan Lewis was fatally shot by a Columbus officer inside his bedroom while police were serving a warrant in the middle of the night

This is besides the still-pending civil case the estate filed against the Columbus police officers, who showed up to the 20-year-old’s apartment to serve a warrant in the middle of the night in Aug. 2022.

“Law enforcement in the city of Columbus needs to target crime, not color,” said Rex Elliot, attorney representing the estate of Donovan Lewis.

Elliott was backed by friends and family members of Lewis and others who lost loved ones at the hands of police when he announced the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court Southern District of Ohio against the city of Columbus and Columbus Division of Police Chief Elaine Bryant.

“This lawsuit, this legal action, will force the city to take the steps that our city needs to give us all a police department that can protect all the citizens of Columbus equally,” Elliott said, “and to stop the practice of targeting disproportionately our minority residents.”

The complaint filed Thursday alleges the city has a long-standing policing problem, detailing discrimination dating back to a U.S. Department of Justice investigation of the Columbus Division of Police. The DOJ sued the city following the investigation that accused law enforcement of excessive force, among other unconstitutional charges.

“In 1998 that they were made aware of the problems that we have, Donovan wasn’t even born at that time,” said Rebecca Duran, Lewis’s mom. “Realistically, this wouldn’t have happened to many of us standing up here.”

The DOJ case was settled in 2002, but Elliott said Columbus officers continue to target minorities.

“Over the past decade, deaths at the hands of Columbus police officers were 74% Black citizens, even though only 29% of our city’s population is Black,” Elliott said, citing statistics from a database by the nonprofit Mapping Police Violence.

Lewis was 20 years old when he was shot by former Columbus officer Ricky Anderson on Aug. 30, 2022. A Franklin County Grand Jury indicted Anderson on one count of murder and one count of reckless homicide about a year later. A trial date has not been set.

The new lawsuit is asking the federal court to step in to require reforms by the division of police to increase accountability and transparency, including publishing data and demographics on all police stops and arrests, and to update training.

“This is shameful,” said Michael Wright, attorney representing the estate of Donovan Lewis. “This has to stop. There is an absolute lack of leadership and lack of accountability that basically is allowing these killings and these and this over-policing and this police misconduct to occur.”

Spectrum News contacted the Columbus City Attorney’s office Thursday for comment, but it could not provide one before publication, saying it had not yet been served with the lawsuit.