No charges in police shooting at airport

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

No charges were brought by a grand jury against police officers involved in the fatal shooting of a man at an Ohio airport this year who lunged at an officer with a knife after showing signs he “intended to hijack an aircraft,” a prosecutor said Friday.

The grand jury’s decision not to indict followed a review of the Jan. 7 shooting of Hashim Abdul-Rasheed at Port Columbus International Airport in which airport officers Hussein Hartman and Ryan Ward both fired their guns, said Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien.

No motive was ever revealed in the shooting of Abdul-Rasheed, 41, of suburban Columbus, who had a court-documented history of mental illness. His behavior was “consistent with someone who intended to hijack an aircraft,” a detective’s court filing said in January.

Events leading to the shooting began when police investigated a suspicious vehicle on the ticketing level of the airport, O’Brien said. Around the same time, Abdul-Rasheed approached the Southwest Airlines ticket counter to buy an airline ticket using an identification card belonging to a female.

After leaving the counter without a ticket, Abdul-Rasheed spoke briefly with Hartman then charged him with a knife, O’Brien said. Police previously have said Abdul-Rasheed was returning to his illegally parked vehicle.

Hartman fired three shots while a second officer, Dan Harper, tried unsuccessfully to subdue Abdul-Rasheed with a baton.

Ward, arriving after seeing the confrontation on a video monitor, struck Abdul-Rasheed after firing three shots, O’Brien said. The prosecutor said Abdul-Rasheed had three additional knives tucked in the waistband of his pants.

Cuyahoga County court records show that Abdul-Rasheed was accused of trying to kill his mother in 1999 and a court found him not guilty by reason of insanity; the court determined he was mentally ill and subject to involuntary hospitalization. He remained under court supervision for more than a decade.

Police responded frequently to disturbances at his apartment in the past year. His wife told police officers last summer that he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and was not taking his medicine.