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Kyle Anthony Veyon

Age : 26

Gender : Male

Race : Black

Date : 09/29/2021

Location : 2400 block Kimberly Parkway

City : Columbus

County : Franklin

State : Ohio

Agency : Columbus Division of Police

Officer(s) :Andrew Hawkins

Cause of Death : Gunshot

Event : Killed by police during mental health crisis and domestic disturbance

OPEN RECORDS SUMMARY :

On 09/29/2021, Columbus Police Officer Andrew Hawkins shot and killed 26-year-old Kyle Anthony Veyon outside a residence at 2469 Kimberly Parkway East after police responded to a domestic disturbance involving Veyon, his former girlfriend and a knife.
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Police were dispatched after a 911 call came from the former girlfriend’s phone without the caller initially providing information to the dispatcher. When officers arrived, the woman told them Veyon had tried to kill her with a knife. She later told investigators that Veyon had called her at work, sent her a photograph of himself holding a knife to his throat, damaged her clothing and threatened to kill her and then himself. She also reported having a stay-away order involving Veyon.
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Body-camera video documented much of the final encounter. Veyon was holding a large knife near his own throat when officers confronted him. Officers repeatedly ordered him to stop and back away. Officer Steve Balmert attempted to use a Taser, but the attempt was unsuccessful.
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Veyon then ran toward his former girlfriend as she fled. After she escaped his immediate reach, Veyon turned back toward Hawkins. The video shows Veyon continuing toward Hawkins with the knife held at his own neck while repeatedly yelling for Hawkins to kill him. Hawkins repeatedly told him to stop before firing his handgun when Veyon had closed to within several feet. Officers immediately provided first aid, and Veyon was transported to Grant Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 10:37 a.m.
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The video and subsequent investigative records make the behavioral-health dimension of the encounter unusually clear. Veyon was threatening suicide, held the knife against himself and repeatedly demanded that police kill him immediately before Hawkins fired. At the same time, the former girlfriend told investigators that Veyon had threatened to kill her, and the body-camera footage shows him running after her while armed with the knife. The shooting therefore occurred during an acute suicidal crisis that also presented a reported threat to another person.
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The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation conducted the independent investigation. BCI collected body-camera footage, dispatch records, physical and forensic evidence, interviewed Hawkins and the other officers, interviewed multiple civilian witnesses and reviewed Hawkins’ personnel and training history. The completed investigative materials were subsequently made publicly available by the Ohio Attorney General.
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The Franklin County Prosecutor’s Office later presented Hawkins’ shooting of Veyon to a grand jury. In 2023, the grand jury voted not to indict Hawkins, ending the criminal review without charges against him.
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Available reporting and investigative records do not establish that Veyon’s family publicly contested the basic events documented on the body-camera footage or filed an encounter-related wrongful-death or civil-rights lawsuit.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
BCI’s review of Andrew Hawkins’ personnel file found 12 previous use-of-force entries in his Columbus police record before he killed Veyon. BCI reported that none of those entries showed that Hawkins had been disciplined for his use of force. His records also showed that he had received crisis-intervention training in 2012, making that training particularly relevant to the circumstances of Veyon’s acute suicidal crisis.
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Hawkins remained with the Columbus Division of Police after the shooting and was promoted to sergeant in December 2023.
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The institutional context surrounding the Columbus Division of Police was unusually significant when Veyon was killed. The department had a long history of federal civil-rights scrutiny. A U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division investigation had previously determined that Columbus officers engaged in a pattern or practice of excessive force, false arrests and false charges, and improper searches and seizures in violation of the Constitution.
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More immediately, Veyon was killed during an extraordinary period of controversy over Columbus police use of deadly force. In December 2020, Officer Adam Coy shot and killed Andre Hill, an unarmed Black man, within seconds of encountering him in a garage. Coy was fired and criminally charged with murder. In April 2021, Columbus officers were involved in the fatal hospital shooting of Miles Jackson, and later that same month Officer Nicholas Reardon shot and killed 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant. Those shootings intensified demands for outside review and reform of the department.
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In April 2021, months before Hawkins killed Veyon, Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther requested assistance from the U.S. Department of Justice to review the police department and recommend reforms addressing racial bias and other policing concerns. That federal technical-assistance process eventually produced additional reviews of the department, including a later examination of Columbus police use-of-force policies, procedures and training.
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The Veyon investigation itself provides considerably more transparency than many fatal police shootings because the body-camera video, BCI investigative reports, witness interviews and officer personnel-file reviews were ultimately released. Those records establish both the immediate circumstances confronting Hawkins and the fact that Hawkins had accumulated 12 prior documented use-of-force entries before this fatal shooting.

SOURCE LINKS :

https://www.nbc4i.com/news/local-news/columbus/columbus-police-officer-not-charged-in-2021-shooting/
https://www.wosu.org/news/2021-10-01/columbus-police-release-body-camera-video-of-wednesdays-police-involved-shooting
https://prosecutor.franklincountyohio.gov/press-releases/1542
https://www.ohioattorneygeneral.gov/InvestigativeDocuments
https://www.ohioattorneygeneral.gov/getattachment/3e62e884-8156-4e3a-a5c2-360e91c3b25c/3e62e884-8156-4e3a-a5c2-360e91c3b25c.aspx
https://www.ohioattorneygeneral.gov/getattachment/b1a79cc9-e1ae-4052-887d-5377e92a1a64/b1a79cc9-e1ae-4052-887d-5377e92a1a64.aspx
https://www.justice.gov/crt/columbus-findings-letter
https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-releases-report-based-critical-response-review-columbus-ohio-division