US police officer kills pregnant Black woman, unborn child

Authorities in the US state of Ohio have released footage captured by the police body camera showing a law enforcement officer fatally shooting an unarmed pregnant Black woman.

The victim has been identified as Ta’Kiya Young, 21, from Blendon Township, Ohio, who was about to give birth to a daughter in November.

The video was released on Friday, showing an officer standing by the driver's side of the woman's car outside a grocery store.

The officer asks her to get out of the vehicle. Young refuses to heed the call and instead starts to drive.

She is subsequently hit by a single bullet fired by another officer, who is standing in the car's path.

Her car continues about 50ft before grinding to a halt on the sidewalk outside the grocery store.

Officers broke the car window, pulled Young out, and began medical assistance with the help of an emergency room doctor who happened to be there, said the Blendon Township police chief, John Belford.

Young and her unborn daughter, however, did not survive.

"She was an unarmed pregnant mother of two," said Sean Walton, an attorney for the Young family. "It goes beyond the unjustifiable."

"It’s a large family and Ta'Kiya has been snatched away from them," Walton said. "I think the entire family is still in shock."

"She was so excited to have this little girl," Young's grandmother, Nadine Young, told reporters on Wednesday. "She has her two little boys, but she was so fired up to have this girl. She is going to be so missed."

"I’m a mess because it’s just tragic, but it should have never ever happened."

Belford claimed that the officers were responding to a call by an employee from the grocery store, who had alleged that a number of people were leaving the shop with stolen items.

Young was among them, according to the employee. She had allegedly taken bottles of alcohol without paying.

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