The FBI and Justice Department will be investigating the killing of Casey Goodson, who was shot to death in front of his door by Franklin County Sheriff's Office deputy Jason Meade last Friday, CNN reported. 

Columbus Police Chief Thomas Quinlan announced the decision in a statement shared on Twitter.

"After being briefed about the circumstances surrounding the incident by CPD, I believe a federal investigation is warranted. I have contacted the FBI and have requested that they work in conjunction with CPD to investigate this case through our office," United States Attorney David DeVillers said.

"Independent of our investigation, bringing in the Department of Justice brings all of the resources of the federal government to answer the critical civil rights questions being posed by the community. This offers the highest level of transparency and a clear path to the truth," Quinlan said. 

Goodson's grandmother and young brother were home when the 23-year-old, holding his facemask and a Subway sandwich, put his keys into the door before he was shot and fell into his kitchen.

The case has inflamed racial tensions in Ohio because the police version of events is completely different than what Goodson's family reported and officers were able to disseminate their story to the press first, shaping the conversation around what happened.'

"My son, as I've stated a thousand times, was an amazing little boy. And he was still a little boy because he is always going to be my baby. Just knowing that Jason Meade took his voice, he no longer has one. Therefore, I am his voice and I know that I have to be his voice. I have to stand up for my son because, if I don't, no one else will," Goodson's mother, Tamala Payne told ABC News Prime.

Most of the initial headlines focused on the fact that Goodson had a gun on him and before an investigation was even launched, police sources told news outlets like ABC6 that the shooting was justified. 

Goodson, who was not the target of Meade's raid, had not even committed a crime, and in fact, had no criminal record. He was also legally permitted to have a firearm, according to CNN. Multiple family members have bashed the police and press, writing on social media that police were outright lying about what happened in order to tamp down outrage. 

"They are lying! My brother literally walked across the yard, walked into the back fence to get to the side door, had his subway and mask in one hand keys in the other, UNLOCKED AND OPENED THE DOOR and stepped in the house before shooting him," Goodson's sister, Kaylee Harper wrote on Facebook.

But Meade, who was on a separate raid with the U.S. Marshal's fugitive task force, alleged that Goodson waved his gun at him before he opened fire. Goodson's family has questioned why anyone, much less a Black man, would wave a pistol at armed officers while carrying a sandwich and trying to enter his own home after a dentist appointment. 

Sean Walton, a lawyer for Goodson's family, called him "an amazing young man whose life was tragically taken."

"At this point, witness testimony and physical evidence raise serious concerns about why Casey was even confronted, let alone why he was shot dead while entering his own home," Walton told CNN. "Even hours after his death, the keys that he used to let himself in the house as he was shot and killed hung in the door — a reminder to his family of how close he was to safety."

The Columbus Division of Police told CNN that there is no video of the incident because officers there do not have bodycams and there are no eyewitnesses.

There was further outrage when the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation said it would not take the case because the Columbus Police failed to contact them for more than three days. 

"We received a referral to take a three-day-old officer-involved shooting case. Not knowing all the reasons as to why so much time has passed before the case was referred to BCI, we cannot accept this case," a spokesperson for the Attorney General's office told CNN.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost went on to explain that BCI "cannot be the subject matter experts unless we're on scene from the beginning to document the evidence of what happened from the start."

"Three days later after the crime scene has been dismantled and the witness have all dispersed does not work," he added.

Activists in Ohio have noted that this is far from the first time a Black person has been shot to death by police, citing the police killings of 13-year-old Tyre King in 2016, 16-year-old Julius Tate in 2018, 30-year-old Kareem Ali Nadir Jones in 2017 and 23-year-old Henry Green in 2016.

In 2014, 12-year-old Tamir Rice was also gunned down in Ohio, by Cleveland officer Timothy Loehmann. Loehmann never faced charges for killing Rice on video. 

Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown has even spoken out about the shooting, calling it "yet another young Black man who should be alive today."

Our hearts break for another family who has lost a son at the hands of the police. I join the Columbus NAACP & Mr. Goodson’s family in calling for a full investigation of this tragedy," he wrote on Twitter. 

Both Kiara Yakita, founder of the Black Liberation Movement of Central Ohio, and Chelsea Fuller, a Columbus-based spokeswoman for the Movement for Black Lives, told CNN that protests are planned for this weekend.

"A crisis of this magnitude calls for a massive realignment of power. That realignment can and will happen through defunding the police, reducing their bloated budgets, and re-investing those resources in the creation of new systems of public safety that account for all lives, not just some," Fuller said. 

Yakita added that Black Ohioans spent the summer protesting racial injustice and police violence yet still have to face the same violence from police. She said Black people are "feeling helplessness, hopelessness and hurt."

"It's like we did all of that for nothing," she said. 

Casey-GoodsonColumbus, Ohiopolice killingPolice shootingThomas-Quinlan