No charges for Columbus officers who shot and killed man in 2023
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COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- Two officers from Columbus police won't face charges from a shootout that left a man dead in 2023.
A Franklin County grand jury voted not to indict the officers, Anthony Sebastiano and Jeremy Smith, for the shooting death of Austin Huntzinger, Franklin County Prosecuting Attorney Gary Tyack said Friday. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation also reviewed body camera and dashcam footage from the incident.
The shootout stemmed from a report on Aug. 9 of a man with a gun in the 4000 block of South High Street. A second call reported an armed man carjacking someone in a parking lot within the area. When Sebastiano and Smith found Huntzinger in the stolen car and got out of theirs, Huntzinger got out of his car with a gun in his hand. Tyack said Huntzinger pointed the gun at the two officers as he tried to run away.
After being told to drop the gun, Huntzinger shot twice and struck Sebastiano in the thigh, according to the prosecuting attorney. Both officers fired back and hit Huntzinger.
Huntzinger later died at a local hospital. Tyack said Sebastiano underwent surgery for his gunshot wound and survived.
According to court records, Huntzinger had an open warrant from an incident on June 29, 2023, in which he was charged with eluding an officer in a vehicle, as well as obstructing official business. He was also facing a weapons while under disability charge from Knox County, and would have had a criminal trial hearing in September.
The suspect also had prior convictions in which he received three years of community control for a felonious assault committed in November 2019. In 2018, he was sentenced to two years of community control for aggravated menacing. He later was sentenced to 30 days in jail with five days suspended after his probation was revoked in August of 2020, after he received his sentence for felonious assault.