‘I thought I was going to die’: Former Ohio police officer Adam Coy testifies in Andre Hill murder trial

Former police officer Adam Coy took the witness stand with him murder case On Monday, he told a jury that he believed Andre Hill was about to shoot him with a silver revolver when he opened fire on the 47-year-old unarmed black man in the dark garage of a home in Columbus, Ohio.

“I thought I was going to die,” an emotional Coy, a former member of the Columbus Division of Police, testified about the fatal encounter with Hill on December 22, 2020.

After firing four shots and approaching Hill, who lay bleeding to death on the garage floor, Coy said he looked for the gun he thought Hill was wielding, but found a large set of keys, a lighted cell phone and a pack of cigarettes. close to his body.

“I got to a point where I was standing next to Mr. Hill and I rolled him back,” Coy testified. “I started looking for where the gun was and I saw a pile of keys there and I said, ‘F—.’ I knew at that moment I had made a mistake.”

Coy, 47, took the witness stand Monday after the prosecution rested its case. Franklin County prosecutors called just six witnesses in three days and showed the jury in Franklin County Court of Common Pleas body camera video how Coy shot Hill, who emerged from a friend’s garage with a cellphone in his hand.

Prosecutors are expected to file a rebuttal case, calling an expert witness in police training, once the defense rests.

Coy, who is white, is charged with murder, assault and reckless homicide. He has pleaded not guilty.

If convicted, Coy faces life in prison without the possibility of parole.

‘Something isn’t right here’

Under questioning by his attorney Mark Collins, Coy said he was responding to a non-emergency complaint about a suspicious vehicle parked on the street at 1:30 a.m. with the engine on and off.

Coy testified that when he arrived on the scene, he approached the vehicle the 911 caller had directed him to.

Coy said that as he approached the car, the driver, who turned out to be Hill, rolled down the window and held up a cell phone.

“The driver says, ‘I’m waiting for someone to come out. They’ll be out soon,'” Coy testified.

Coy said he wished Hill a “good evening,” went back to his patrol car and waited for the person to come out to meet Hill.

“He seemed wide-eyed, a little nervous and dismissive of me,” Coy said of Hill. “He wanted to break contact with me as quickly as possible.”

Coy testified that after a few minutes, Hill got out of his car, went to the porch of a house and banged on the door, but got no answer.

He said Hill then walked back to his car and rummaged through the front seat before returning to the house and knocking on the door again.

Coy said he asked Hill, “What’s going on?” But Hill ignored him.

He said Hill kept looking over his shoulder at him the second time he went to the front door of the house and knocked, but again got no answer.

“You start thinking, ‘What is this person’s intention?’” Coy testified. “With the whole of everything that’s going on right now, I’m starting to have a more reasonable suspicion that there’s a crime going on and that he’s not being honest with me.”

He testified that by the time his colleague, Officer Amy Detweiler, arrived on the scene, he had lost sight of Hill and the two officers decided to walk into the driveway of the house to determine Hill’s whereabouts.

Coy testified that he did not draw his gun as he and Detweiler walked into the driveway.

He said he shined his flashlight into a dark open garage looking for Hill.

“About this moment I see a light flickering at the back of the garage. Maybe two or three steps up the driveway, I see a flicker low to the ground in the back corner of the garage,” Coy testified.

Pointing his flashlight at the flickering light, he testified, “Mr. Hill is crouched in the rear right corner of the garage.”

“I shine my flashlight at him and say, ‘Something’s not right here. Come here, show yourself,'” Coy testified.

‘It was the worst night of my life’

Coy said Hill walked toward him with his lighted cell phone in his left hand. But Coy testified that Hill was walking next to a car parked in the garage and that he could not see the man’s right side.

Coy claimed that Hill was “blading,” or had taken a “position such as a boxer would take if he were in a fight.” He said he believed Hill was holding up his cell phone as “a distraction.”

He said he was finally able to see Hill’s right side when Hill reached the back of the car parked in the garage.

“When he turns to you, what do you see?” Collins asked.

Coy replied, “A silver revolver in his right hand.” Coy said it appeared Hill raised the gun from behind his leg and “it came at me.”

“I pulled my gun,” Coy said. “I shouted, ‘Gun! Gun!’ and I fired four shots.”

Collins asked, “Why did you fire four shots?”

Coy replied, “That’s what stopped it.”

Coy testified that when he realized he was mistaken about what was in Hill’s right hand, he felt “shocked.”

“It was the worst night of my life,” Coy testified. ‘I went into shock. I started dry heaving. I couldn’t control myself. I couldn’t think straight. Everything was a blur to me.”

Coy ended his direct testimony by saying, “I saw an imminent threat and I didn’t want to be shot right before Christmas.”

The trial is expected to continue on Tuesday.