Another shopper, 37-year-old Angela Williams of Fairborn, died of cardiac arrest in the commotion after police commanded everyone out of the store after the shooting.
A Greene County grand jury declined to indict Williams, and the Department of Justice has an open investigation into the shooting. The Crawford family filed a lawsuit against the Beavercreek Police Department, Williams and Walmart.
Walmart has declined to say whether they plan to change the way BB/pellet rifles and other realistic looking weapons are displayed in their stores because of the shooting.
“Our condolences continue to go out to the families who lost loved ones,” said Aaron Mullins senior manager, Walmart media relations. Out of respect for everyone involved, we believe it’s not appropriate to discuss the specifics of this matter. We take the safety and security of our stores seriously so that Walmart remains a safe shopping experience for our customers.”
The shooting along with other high-profile cases involved people who died at the hands of police helped spark a national discussion on police training and tactics. Both Ohio’s attorney general and governor formed task forces and Ohio has budgeted $24.6 million the next two years for more scenario-based police training and community relations.
Events put on by multiple groups are planned for today both in Beavercreek and at Courthouse Square in Dayton this evening to commemorate the one year anniversary of the shooting.
A group that supports Ohio’s open carry of gun laws and has demonstrated before has planned an event at 5 p.m. near Walmart. Black Lives Matter Greene County has planned at 6 p.m. “die-in” demonstration at Walmart.
The Crawford family and its attorneys who have brought a civil suit against Walmart and Beavercreek will have a rally, prayer vigil and balloon release starting at 7 p.m. in Dayton’s Courthouse Square. Several people are scheduled to speak.
Crawford and dozens of other unarmed black men who have been killed by white police officers around the country the past year have led to violent protests in cities such as Ferguson, Mo. and Baltimore. Groups in the Dayton area have also held demonstrations and protests around the Miami Valley, trying to seek justice for Crawford, they say.
The incidents have led to a national conversation on race and renewed the black community’s mistrust of police. The shootings also led to the Black Lives Matter movement, which has attracted an ethnically diverse group of participants.
The police-involved shootings continue to polarize along racial lines, widen the gap between officers and the people they are sworn serve and protect. It’s also has perpetuated the stereotype that police only target blacks.
However, national polls indicate blacks are less likely to trust police compared to whites. Patrick Oliver, a Cedarville University associate professor of criminal justice and a former police chief, explains that trust remains a major obstacle.
“(Black communities) may feel that the actions that police take, at times, may be legal but they’re not legitimate or moral or ethical,” he said. “The heart of the problem is the relationships that police may or may not enjoy with members of a community.”
In Ohio, Tamir Rice, 12, was shot and killed by a police officer in Cleveland while holding a pellet gun in November. A witness called 911 and reported a young male with a gun, but added the gun was probably not real.
This year, the deaths of two more black men at the hands of officers received media attention and raised questions among the public. Dontae Martin, a 34-year-old Dayton man, was shot multiple times and killed by Montgomery County deputies in Harrison Twp. on July 23.
Samuel DuBose, 43, was shot and killed by a University of Cincinnati police officer during a traffic stop in the Mount Auburn neighborhood on July 19. A grand jury indicted indicted former UC Officer Ray Tensing during on murder and involuntary manslaughter charges.
An estimated 680 people have been killed by law enforcement officers so far this year, according to data published by The Guardian. Almost half, or 334, were white compared to blacks, who accounted for 26 percent of those killed this year by police.
The same data indicates a higher death rate for blacks, 4.21 per million, compared to 1.69 per million for whites.
Research conducted in the 1990s and 2000s suggest that police officers are more likely to draw a weapon on an unarmed black suspect than they are for an unarmed white suspect,” said Carmen Culotta, a Wright State University psychology instructor and co-author of a research study published last year found officers tend to overestimate the age of black youth compared to white and Latino youth.
“Although we can’t know this with certainty, it’s possible that implicit bias played a role in the shooting of John Crawford,” Culotta said. “We know from research that officers are quicker to draw a weapon on unarmed black suspect than they are for an unarmed white suspect.”
Implicit bias occurs in the subconscious mind and can affect a person’s behavior when making decisions within a short period of time, she said.
“It’s not external explicit racism,” she said. “It’s not using racial slurs. It’s not having negative attitudes about black people.”
In a survey of 1,501 American adults conducted by Pew Research and USA TODAY last year, 70 percent of blacks said police departments did a “poor job” of treating minorities equally and a poor job of holding police officers accountable for misconduct. More than half of blacks surveyed, 57 percent, said police departments failed to use the right amount of force.
In the same survey, 72 percent of whites, compared to 37 percent of blacks, said they had a “fair amount of confidence” that police in the communities treated whites and blacks equally.
Traditionally, law enforcement and black communities have had a strained relationship stemming back to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, said Keane Toney, a bias recognition diversity specialist and the University of Mount Union director of campus safety and security. Historically police have been tasked with enforcing laws that denied rights to specific populations such as racial segregation and women who were denied the right to vote.
“Law enforcement has been used, improperly or properly but legally for that time, as a means of maintaining the status quo,” he said. “The history of law enforcement hasn’t been that good when it comes to black people … Not because they’re a bunch of racist animals, but because they were enforcing the law.”
Reporter Mark Gokavi contributed to this story.
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