The Ohio deputy who fatally shot Casey Goodson Jr. in the back five times last year is retiring on disability, the Franklin County sheriff said Friday.
Goodson, 23, a Black man, was killed by Deputy Jason Meade, who is white, last December in an encounter that is still largely unexplained.
Meade will retire July 2, Franklin County Sheriff Dallas Baldwin said without detail.
“Law Enforcement disability decisions are governed by state law and made by the pension system,” Baldwin said. “As sheriff, I have no control or input over what the pension system decides with this or any other disability case.”
A message was left with the attorney representing Meade.
The shooting took place in Columbus on Dec. 4 while Meade, a 17-year veteran of the sheriff’s office, was finishing up an unsuccessful search for a fugitive as part of his work for a U.S. Marshals Office fugitive task force.
Goodson was not the subject of the fugitive search. While U.S. Marshal Peter Tobin initially said Meade confronted Goodson after Goodson drove by and waved a gun at the deputy, he later withdrew those comments, saying they’d been based on “insufficient information.”
Tobin also said Meade was ”not performing a mission” for the marshals at the time of the shooting.
Relatives say Goodson was opening the door to his grandmother’s house at the time he was shot. Officials said that a gun was recovered from the scene but have not provided further details. There was no body camera or cruiser dash cam video of the shooting.
The case remains under criminal investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office with help from the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. Meade has not been charged.
Goodson’s family is disappointed that Baldwin didn’t fire Meade but his resignation provides “a small sense of relief,” Sean Walton, an attorney representing the Goodson family, said in a statement.
Meade’s “sudden retirement shows that he understands that he is soon to be held accountable for his actions, and for Casey’s family and for this entire community that day cannot come soon enough,” Walton said.
