It happened in seconds. On a cold December night in 2020, Andre Hill was doing something most of us do without a second thought—visiting a friend. He was standing in a garage, the glow of his cell phone screen likely the only light he saw before the world went dark. He wasn't a criminal. He wasn't even the person the police were originally looking for. Yet, within moments of an officer’s arrival, Hill lay dying on a concrete floor. The murder of Andre Hill didn't just spark another round of protests; it exposed a terrifying lapse in basic police procedure that still leaves people in Ohio and across the country feeling uneasy.
Truthfully, the details of that night are hard to stomach.
Columbus Police Officer Adam Coy arrived at the scene following a non-emergency call about a car being turned on and off. It wasn't a high-stakes felony stop. It wasn't a shootout in progress. When Coy encountered Hill in a driveway on Oberlin Drive, Hill was walking toward him with a phone in his left hand. His right hand wasn't visible. Without shouting a warning, without telling him to "drop the weapon" or "get on the ground," Coy fired his service weapon. Hill was hit multiple times.
The Silence That Followed the Shots
What happened next is arguably as controversial as the shooting itself. It’s what makes the murder of Andre Hill such a singular point of failure in law enforcement history. For several agonizing minutes, as Hill lay on the ground moaning and struggling to breathe, not one of the officers on the scene offered him medical aid. They didn't start CPR. They didn't apply pressure to his wounds. They didn't even speak to him with any semblance of compassion. Instead, they handcuffed his dying body.
There’s a specific kind of coldness in watching that bodycam footage.
The silence is broken only by the sound of sirens in the distance and the shuffling of boots. Coy had failed to turn on his body camera initially, but the "look-back" feature captured the shooting without audio. We see Hill fall. We see the lack of urgency. It was 10 minutes before any real medical intervention began. By then, it was far too late. Hill, a 47-year-old father and grandfather who was known for his big personality and love for his family, was pronounced dead at a local hospital.
Why the "Look-Back" Feature Changed Everything
Most people don't realize that police body cameras often record 30 to 60 seconds of video before the officer actually hits the record button. This is a buffer. It’s why we have video of the murder of Andre Hill at all. Because Coy didn't manually activate his camera until after he fired his weapon, the "look-back" footage provided the objective truth that contradicted any narrative of a "perceived threat" that might have been cooked up later.
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The lack of audio in that first minute is eerie. It forces you to focus purely on the movement. You see Hill’s hand. You see the phone. You see the immediate, violent response.
The Legal Fallout and the Conviction of Adam Coy
Usually, these cases drag on for years with very little resolution. Honestly, many expected the same here. But the legal system moved with a rare, blunt force in this instance. Adam Coy was fired from the Columbus Division of Police within days. The city's leadership, including then-Mayor Andrew Ginther, was visibly furious. They didn't hide behind the usual "wait for the investigation" platitudes. They saw what we all saw.
In late 2024, the legal journey reached a definitive peak.
A jury found Adam Coy guilty of murder. This wasn't just a manslaughter charge or a "negligent homicide" tap on the wrist. It was a murder conviction. During the trial, prosecutors hammered home a simple point: you cannot shoot an unarmed man who is complying with your presence just because you are afraid. Fear is not a blank check for lethal force.
Coy’s defense tried to argue that he thought Hill was holding a silver revolver. They claimed he saw a "glint." But when the evidence showed it was just a cell phone, and the bodycam showed Hill was simply walking toward the officer, that defense crumbled. The jury didn't buy it. The judge eventually sentenced Coy to 15 years to life in prison.
The Cost of a Life in Dollars
While no amount of money brings back a grandfather, the civil settlement in the murder of Andre Hill was historic. The City of Columbus agreed to pay Hill's family $10 million. At the time, it was the largest settlement in the city's history. It was a staggering admission of liability.
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However, if you talk to activists in Columbus, the money is almost secondary. They’ll tell you that the real "settlement" needed to be a change in the law. They wanted to make sure that "forgetting" to turn on a camera or "forgetting" to provide medical aid carried actual criminal weight.
Andre’s Law: A Legacy in Policy
The most tangible thing to come out of this tragedy—besides the conviction—is Andre’s Law. This is a piece of legislation passed by the Columbus City Council that mandates two specific things:
- Body Cameras Must Be On: Officers are required to activate their body-worn cameras during any enforcement action.
- The Duty to Render Aid: If an officer uses force that causes injury, they are legally required to immediately provide first aid and call for medics.
It sounds like common sense, right? You’d think this was already the rule. Surprisingly, it wasn't codified in a way that held individual officers accountable for the omission of care. Now, in Columbus, an officer can face departmental charges or even criminal consequences specifically for standing by while someone bleeds out.
What the Public Gets Wrong About the Case
Social media often flattens these stories into "good guy vs. bad guy" tropes. But the murder of Andre Hill is more complex because it highlights a systemic training failure. Hill wasn't running. He wasn't resisting. He was in a "pro-police" neighborhood. This wasn't a high-crime "hotspot" where tensions are naturally at a breaking point.
People often ask, "Why didn't he just drop the phone?"
The better question, and the one the prosecution focused on, is: "Why didn't the officer give him a chance to?" Policing requires a level of de-escalation that was entirely absent here. You've got an officer who had a history of complaints—over 30 in his career—and yet he was still on the street, still responding to calls, and still making split-second life-or-death decisions.
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The Problem of "Blue Room" Dynamics
There's a concept in sociology often applied to police departments where officers become desensitized to the humanity of the people they encounter. In the Hill case, the other officers who arrived didn't see a man in a Black Lives Matter t-shirt (which Hill was wearing) as a neighbor in distress. They saw a "suspect" first and a human being second.
This is why the medical aid portion of the video is so vital. It’s a litmus test for empathy. When you watch a person struggle for air and your first instinct is to check your perimeter rather than check his pulse, something in the system is fundamentally broken.
Practical Steps Toward Accountability
If you're following the aftermath of the murder of Andre Hill, it’s not enough to just be angry. Real change happens through specific, boring, bureaucratic channels. This case provides a roadmap for what "accountability" actually looks like in 2026.
- Demand Bodycam Audits: It’s not enough for officers to have cameras; departments need independent auditors to ensure they are being used. Random spot checks of footage can identify officers who habitually "forget" to hit record.
- Support Independent Oversight: The Columbus Civilian Police Accountability Board was strengthened because of this case. These boards need subpoena power to be effective. Without it, they are just "suggestion boxes."
- Focus on Duty to Intervene: We need to normalize the idea that a "good cop" is one who stops their partner from making a fatal mistake. If the second officer on the scene had stepped in and started CPR, Hill might still be alive.
- Review Use-of-Force Policies: Policies must explicitly state that lethal force is a last resort, not a first reaction to uncertainty.
The murder of Andre Hill remains a benchmark for justice because, for once, the system didn't just shrug its shoulders. The conviction of Adam Coy sent a message to departments across the Midwest: the badge is not a shield against the consequences of a bad shoot.
For the Hill family, the journey isn't over. They continue to advocate for federal changes that mirror Andre’s Law. They want to ensure that what happened in that Columbus garage never happens in a driveway in Des Moines or a backyard in Phoenix. The case stands as a reminder that transparency—whether it comes from a bodycam "look-back" or a jury's verdict—is the only way to build even a shred of trust back between the police and the communities they serve.
To stay informed on the implementation of Andre's Law and similar police reform measures, monitor the official reports from the Columbus Division of Police Oversight and the Ohio General Assembly’s legislative updates. Real accountability is a marathon, not a sprint, and it requires consistent public pressure to ensure that the policies written in the wake of tragedy are actually enforced on the street.