Former Ohio deputy charged with murder in fatal shooting of Casey Goodson Jr.
A former sheriff's deputy in Ohio was charged with murder in the fatal shooting of Casey Goodson Jr., a 23-year-old Black man. Jason Meade has been charged with two counts of murder and one count of reckless homicide, according to court documents obtained by CBS affiliate WBNS.
The charges come nearly one year after the fatal shooting on December 4, 2020. Meade, Columbus police and Goodson's family have all provided different accounts of what occurred that day.
Police said Meade, a Franklin County sheriff's deputy, shot Goodson after he saw "a man with a gun" while looking for violent offenders on behalf of the U.S. Marshals Service's Fugitive Task Force. Police said there were "reports of a verbal exchange" before Meade fatally shot Goodson, who was not the person being pursued by the task force.
But Goodson's family has said he was only carrying a bag of Subway sandwiches before he was shot in the back on the doorstep, falling into the home in front of his grandmother and two toddlers.
In a civil lawsuit obtained by WBSN, the family said Meade "targeted and hunted" Goodson after the task force's work had ended for the day and shot him six times in his back when he was entering the home.
"My son was murdered in cold blood, and we don't have no answers as to why he was murdered," Goodson's mother told CBS News last year. "It is not a question to me at all at this time if my son was murdered or not."
Meade's attorneys claim Goodson pointed a gun at the officer before the fatal shooting. Police said they recovered a gun from Goodson but did not say he had been using it before he was killed.
Sean Walton, an attorney for the Goodson family, said the family did not see a gun at the scene but said Ohio is an open-carry state and that Goodson had the proper licenses to carry a weapon.
"We don't know if he had a gun on him, unfortunately, because we don't have answers at this point about what happened that led Jason Meade to choose to take Casey's life that day," Walton said last year. "But, you know, if he did have a gun on him, it would not be a surprise because he had every right to have a gun on him that day. And that in itself is not a crime at all."
In response to the indictment, Franklin County Sheriff Dallas Baldwin told WBSN his office "has a professional obligation to do everything in its power to ensure the community and our deputies are kept safe."
"As I've said from the very beginning, I pray for everyone involved in this tragedy," Baldwin added.
