By: ANTIMEDIA — A police officer in Clark County, Ohio, opened fire on a journalist Monday night after he mistook the reporter’s camera equipment for a weapon.
The incident occurred around 10 pm after Andy Grimm, a photographer for the New Carlisle News who was out photographing a thunderstorm — due to pass the small town about 20 miles north of Dayton — began setting up his camera and tripod at a local traffic stop.
That’s when Officer Jake Shaw expelled two shots at Grimm, with one bullet striking him in the chest and the other grazing his shoulder, according to the New York Daily News.
“I turned around from the Jeep and it seemed like an instant, I heard pop-pop,” Grimm told the newspaper. “I was just doing my job.”
Grimm was then taken to Miami Valley Hospital for surgery and is expected to make a full recovery.
According to New Carlisle News Publisher Dale Grimm, who is also Andy Grimm’s father, “He said there was no warning, no ‘show me hands’ or ‘drop what you have.‘”
Dale Grimm told the Washington Post that his son was “parked under a light in plain view of the deputy, with a press pass around his neck.”
Grimm hopes the officer does not lose his job. “Now that I’m OK, I’m not so much mad,” he said, “but when I was on the ground and in the back of the ambulance, I was kind of angry at him.”
He went on to say, “Until I hear [the officer’s] side, I guess I won’t know what I did wrong.”
Requests for comment were not immediately returned. However, Clark County Sheriff Deborah Burchett has referred all questions to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, which has now taken over an investigation into the matter.
The Washington Post is also reporting that Officer Shaw has been placed on administrative leave until the investigation is closed.
