The death of Casey Goodson — fatally shot on his grandmother's doorstep by an Ohio sheriff's deputy — was a homicide, a report released on Wednesday found.
Goodson, a 23 year-old Black man, died of “multiple gunshot wounds to the torso,” according to a preliminary autopsy conducted by the Franklin County Coroner’s Office.
A final report is expected to be released in three to four months pending medical records and the toxicology report, the coroner’s office said. While the report labeled the death a homicide, it did not say Goodson was murdered.
Sean Walton, a lawyer representing the family, told NBC News on Monday that Goodson was entering the home in Columbus on Dec. 4 when he was killed in front of his grandmother and two toddlers.
A deputy, working with a U.S. Marshals Service fugitive task force, “reported witnessing a man with a gun” and fired at Goodson after a “verbal exchange,” Columbus police said in a statement.
The sheriff said the deputy recovered a gun from Goodson, but the young man was “not the person being sought by the U.S. Marshals task force.”
According to a statement from Walton’s firm, Goodson was licensed to carry a concealed gun "and Ohio does not prohibit the open carrying of firearms.”
Walton said Goodson was returning home from a dentist’s appointment and had fetched three Subway sandwiches.
“There’s no reason or justification for why any of this happened,” Walton said. “He fell and died in his own kitchen.”
On Tuesday, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Ohio announced that it would investigate the shooting in coordination with the Justice Department's civil rights division, the FBI and Columbus police.
CORRECTION (Dec. 9, 5:20 p.m. ET): A previous version of this article misstated when Casey Goodson was fatally shot. It was Dec. 4, not Aug. 4.
