Authorities have not yet identified the 911 caller who alerted Columbus, Ohio police that someone was “trying to stab us” before the fatal officer-involved shooting of 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant, but the recording raises new questions that could “change everything,” Fox Nation host Nancy Grace said Thursday.
Police released new information about the shooting on Wednesday, including two 911 calls, body camera footage from three officers who responded to the call and the identity of the officer who pulled the trigger when he found Bryant attempting to attack two other females with a knife on Tuesday.
The first 911 call came in at 4:32 p.m. The caller, who has not been identified by police, said amid a commotion in the background, “[indistinguishable]…trying to fight us, trying to stab us, trying to put their hands on our grandma. Get here now.”
Ma’Khia Bryant’s mother Paula told 10TV that her daughter called 911 because people were threatening her. The Columbus Police Department did not identify the caller and deferred to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, who told Fox News they cannot share that information right now.
While the public continues to demand answers, identifying the 911 caller could be the first clue to understanding what transpired prior to the shooting, Grace said in Thursday’s episode of Fox Nation’s “Crime Stories.”
“If the girl Ma’Khia Bryant is the one that made that 911 call, that changes everything because that tells me that at some point she was afraid of a knife attack if in fact, that was her making the call … where she’s begging an officer to come to the scene because someone has a knife and is attacking her and others,” the former prosecutor explained.
“That really changes everything because that takes her away from being the original aggressor,” Grace emphasized.
Ashley Willcott, a judge and trial attorney who joined Grace for the segment, agreed.
“Absolutely that changes everything because she’s not the original aggressor,” Willcott said. “She, therefore, was initially the victim and there’s a very good argument then [that she was] defending herself.”
That said, Grace underscored that whether or not Bryant feared for her safety and made the 911 call to police, she would still legally be considered “the aggressor because that girl [who she appeared to attack] was unarmed.”
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