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Washington Post Correction Calls into Question Ma’Khia Bryant 911 Narrative

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The Washington Post building in Washington, D.C. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

The Washington Post removed a line from its profile of Bryant that suggested she placed the 911 call.

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Family members of Ma’Khia Bryant, the Ohio teenager shot by a Columbus police officer last week, initially claimed that Bryant placed the 911 call that resulted in her death. Their claims were reported in several local and national outlets, but no evidence has emerged to substantiate the charge that Bryant placed the call — and one widely read report that relied on the family members’ account has been corrected.

Bryant’s mother and aunt initially told local news outlets that Bryant, who was later shot and killed while trying to stab someone, called police after getting into an altercation at the foster home she was staying in.

“My daughter dispatched the Columbus police for protection, not to be a homicide today,” Bryant’s mother Paula Bryant, who was not at the scene when the shooting occurred, told local outlet WBNS 10.

Bryant’s aunt Hazel Bryant has also spoken to several media outlets, helping cement the narrative that Bryant called the police for assistance. She gave roughly the same account to both NPR and the Daily Beast.

“A 16-year-old Black girl was fatally shot by an officer outside her home after she called the police for help on Tuesday afternoon, according to her family,” reads the opening line of the NPR story.

In her account to the Daily Beast, Hazel Bryant said Ma’Khia had “called police, and her biological father and grandmother for help,” and confirmed she had “grabbed a knife” for self-defense. But she also revealed that she had not been at the scene, and “had been told of the events by Ma’Khia’s grandmother and father.”

“The police are going to lie. I’m so thankful that someone from the family was actually on the scene,” she said.

Hazel Bryant also spoke to the Columbus Dispatch, telling the paper that her niece had dropped the knife before being shot — a claim subsequently contradicted by the officer’s body-cam footage.

https://twitter.com/lookner/status/1384706823421374465

Now, it appears that family members’ other claim, that Ma’Khia placed the 911 call to police, is being called into question. A Washington Post profile of Ma’Khia’s family now begins with this correction:

“An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Ma’Khia Bryant’s grandmother believed Bryant called 911 to request assistance Tuesday. This version has been corrected.”

A Post spokesperson did not respond when asked if the correction was added because Bryant’s grandmother never claimed that Bryant placed the 911 call or because new evidence emerged to suggest that the claim is false.

The claim that Bryant made the 911 call has been repeated far and wide, including by the Black Lives Matter organization.

“Everything police say to me is just a claim that needs to be proven,” MSNBC host Joy Reid said last week. “They won’t tell us who made the 911 call. Neighbors say that the little girl, Ma’Khia, made the 911 call — they aren’t telling us that. They aren’t being fully transparent.”

Columbus police released a recording of the 911 call which alerted them to the situation, in which an unidentified caller says “we got these grown girls over here trying to fight us, trying to stab us, trying to put their hands on our grandma. Get here now.” The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, which is conducting an independent inquiry into the shooting, has not said who placed the call in question.

In a follow-up report, WBNS 10 noted that the foster-care home where Bryant was living has made seven calls to 911 since last November — including one last month by Bryant’s 15-year-old sister, Jania, who also lived at the home.

“I want to leave this foster home. I want to leave this foster home,” Jania Bryant told dispatchers. “I got into a fight, and I don’t want to be here anymore.”

A report detailing the call says that after police told Jania they could not relocate her, “the victim then became irate and stated if she does not get to leave, then she was going to kill someone in the home.” Bryant then was taken to a children’s hospital for a psychological evaluation, but was back at the house when her older sister was shot, according to her mother.

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