A former sheriff’s deputy in Ohio has been charged with murder in the death last year of Casey Goodson Jr., a 23-year-old Columbus man who was shot several times in the back, during a fugitive operation that had nothing to do with Mr. Goodson, according to a grand jury indictment.
The former Franklin County sheriff’s deputy, Jason Meade, was indicted on two counts of murder and one count of reckless homicide in the shooting of Mr. Goodson. Mr. Goodson’s family and a lawyer have said he was shot in the doorway of his house in Columbus on Dec. 4, 2020, as he was returning home with sandwiches after a dentist’s appointment.
An autopsy report said Mr. Goodson was shot twice in the mid-back, in both sides of his back and in his buttocks.
The indictment was released by a special prosecutor, H. Tim Merkle, on Thursday, almost a year after Mr. Goodson was killed.
The Franklin County sheriff’s office said after the shooting that Mr. Meade, then a 17-year veteran of the office, had been assigned full time to a U.S. Marshals Service fugitive task force. Members of the task force had been in the area looking for someone in an operation that had nothing to do with Mr. Goodson, the authorities and lawyers for Mr. Goodson’s family have said.
Mr. Meade will plead not guilty when he is arraigned, his lawyer, Mark Collins, said on Thursday.
The Franklin County prosecutor, Gary Tyack, appointed Mr. Merkle and another lawyer, Gary Shroyer, as special prosecutors in June to present the case to a grand jury because Mr. Tyack’s office was expected to defend the county and the sheriff’s office in civil matters related to the shooting.
Mr. Goodson’s death, one of a series of police killings of Black men last year, prompted hundreds to demonstrate in the streets in Columbus, and underscored tensions between the city’s Black community and the authorities.
Mr. Goodson’s family and Sean Walton, the family’s lawyer, have said that Mr. Goodson had in his possession only a face mask to protect him from the coronavirus and Subway sandwiches he had brought home for himself and his family that day.
