Ta'Kiya Young, a pregnant Black mother accused of shoplifting, was killed by an officer who was found not guilty.

After killing Ta'Kiya Young in a grocery store parking lot, an Ohio police officer was cleared of all charges. The Black mother, who was pregnant, was charged with shoplifting.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — On Friday, the Ohio police officer who shot and killed Ta'Kiya Young, a Black expectant woman who had been charged with shoplifting, was found not guilty on all charges, including murder.

Connor Grubb, a Blendon Township police officer, could have been sentenced to life in prison if found guilty. At the decision, Young's grandma broke down in tears and said, "It's not right! This is incorrect! Grubb was then informed he could go by the judge.

The Young family's lawyer, Sean Walton, described it as "an American tragedy," the result of the country's dual legal system. While Ta'Kiya's grandma Nadine Young is raising her great-grandsons, who are now five and eight years old, he promised to continue his legal action against the township and police chief.

“It’s also heartbreaking because what it does is it normalizes the behavior like that Connor Grubb exhibited that day, and that is not normal,” Walton said. “If you look at these recent police killings in Columbus, you have officers who have an irrational fear with no weapons involved or folks doing very minimal behavior that they escalate into a murder.”

Defense attorney Mark Collins said Grubb and his family are relieved, but that it’s wrong to suggest the officer was untouched by the death of Young and her unborn daughter.

He stated, "He has to deal with this for the rest of his life." "Believe me, you didn't hear from him because his statement was released by the government, but he took a life while on duty and realized another's life after the fact, and to walk around with that is a difficult situation."

Collins, however, described the indictment of a law enforcement officer for criminal murder in such a scenario as "unconscionable." He suggested that lawmakers improve Ohio's grand jury procedure.

David Young, a Franklin County Common Pleas Judge who is unrelated to Ta'Kiya, dismissed four of ten counts pertaining to Young's infant's death after concurring with defense lawyers that the prosecution had not shown that Grubb was aware that Young was seven months pregnant when he shot her.

A use-of-force expert, an accident reconstructionist, a police policy expert, and Sgt. Erick Moynihan—the officer who, along with Grubb, had told Young to get out of her car—testified before the jury after watching the bodycam footage.

A special agent for the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation read Grubb's side of the tale into the record, but they never heard from him. He was present at the trial, but he was not personally questioned by the prosecution.

Young was suspected of stealing booze from a Kroger shop in the Columbus suburb, according to a report that Grubb and Moynihan had come to her parked car. As both cops yelled at her to get out and cursed at her, she objected by partially lowering her window. Grubb's right hand was aiming his gun at her while his left was on the car's hood, according to bodycam footage. "Are you going to shoot me?" Young was heard asking them.

The tape revealed that she then applied a turn signal, causing her vehicle to slowly advance in the direction of Grubb, who then shot her once in the chest.

Grubb said in the statement that he put himself in front of Young's car to protect others and offer backup. He claimed that when he heard Young disobeying Moynihan's orders, he pulled out his revolver. He claimed that as her car approached him, he felt it strike his thighs and shins and start to pull his body off the ground as he fired.

They broke the driver's side glass shortly after the vehicle stopped up against the building. She was fatally injured, according to the police, despite their best efforts to save her life. A hospital declared Young and her infant dead.