Dem Rep. Val Demings: Officer Who Shot Ma’Khia Bryant ‘Responded As He Was Trained To Do’
Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) is weighing in on the shooting of 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant. Bryant, who charged two women with a knife, was fatally shot by a Columbus police officer last week. This sparked protest s in…

Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) is weighing in on the shooting of 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant.
Bryant, who charged two women with a knife, was fatally shot by a Columbus police officer last week. This sparked protests in Columbus, Ohio’s state capital.
During Sunday’s interview on CBS’s “Face The Nation,” Demings called the incident a “sad moment.”
Demings, a former police chief in Orlando, continued to say that an “officer on the street” has to “make those split-second decisions, and they’re tough.”
She added, with the “limited information” she knows and after viewing the body-camera video, “It appears the officer responded as he was trained to do.”
Demings’ Democratic colleague Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) expressed frustration following the fatal shooting.
Tlaib tweeted on Thursday, “Ma’Khia’s TikTok videos show her childhood and joy. Her smile at the end of the videos just breaks me a little more. It’s been maddening to see so many people strip away the fact that a child was killed. We cannot be a society that justifies the killing of a child.”


