COLUMBUS – The former Franklin County sheriff’s deputy who fatally shot Casey Goodson Jr. nearly one year ago plans to plead not guilty at a court hearing Friday.
A judge scheduled an initial hearing for Jason Meade, who has been charged with two counts of murder and one count of reckless homicide for the shooting of Goodson, a Black man, on the North Side on Dec. 4, 2020, an incident that is still largely unexplained and involved no body camera or dash cam footage.
Goodson’s mother, Tamala Payne, said she was “overwhelmed with joy” at word of the indictment Thursday.
“It’s been a year of sadness, it’s been a year of grief, it’s been a year of pain,” Payne said at a late morning news conference, surrounded by several relatives. “But I know that every day of this year, that my family and I wake up and just fight for what’s right.”
Attorney Sean Walton announced the family’s wrongful-death lawsuit against Meade and the sheriff’s office.
The lawsuit claims Meade, who is white, received hundreds of hours on firearms and SWAT training but little on violence deescalation techniques, despite subpar performances as a deputy, including being
placed on “no inmate contact status” for nearly four years. The lawsuit did not provide details of the reasons for that placement.
A message was left with Meade’s attorney, who has previously said the coroner’s report on how Goodson was shot has no bearing on what happened that day.
“After the grand jury indictment today, I’ve reminded my staff that while everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty, the standards for being a Franklin County Sheriff’s Deputy must be even higher than that of our criminal justice system. As law enforcement officers we must meet this higher standard because of the immense trust we ask the community to place in us. It’s vital to maintain that trust, which is why I’ve tasked members of my staff to review the facts from the independent investigation when we’re able to fully access them and determine how this agency can best learn from this tragedy.” – Franklin Co. Sheriff Dallas Baldwin
Then a 17-year veteran of the Sheriff’s Office, Meade was looking for violent offenders in the Northland area as a member of the U.S. Marshal’s Service Fugitive Task Force when he reported seeing a man with a gun and investigated.
Meade confronted him outside Goodson’s vehicle in front of the man’s home and there were reports of a verbal exchange between Meade and Casey Goodson, then 23, and Meade fired his weapon at Goodson, hitting him five times and fatally injuring him, police and marshal’s service officials said.
While police claimed a gun was recovered from Goodson, who was not a person being sought by the task force, family members later said that he was holding a sandwich.
The Columbus Division of Police Critical Incident Response Team provided evidence to the Franklin County Prosecutor who turned the findings over to a civilian grand jury.
The case remains under investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office.
Meade retired earlier this year and the Franklin County commissioners approved funding for body-worn cameras for deputies less than two weeks after the fatal shooting.