A man who struck and killed a county deputy with his car on Friday is the father of a teenager who was shot and killed by a Cincinnati police officer a day earlier, police said. Authorities said the crash appeared to be intentional.
The driver of the car, 38-year-old Rodney Hinton Jr., was charged with aggravated murder in the deputy’s death, police said.
Hinton appeared in court Saturday, with a wall of deputies standing at the back of the room. A prosecutor said evidence and witnesses will show that Hinton drove directly at the deputy in an attempt to kill him. A judge ordered that Hinton be held until another hearing on Tuesday.
An attorney representing Hilton said in court that he has no prior felonies and understands it’s a serious charge, WLWT-TV reported.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said in a statement that he was “sickened by what appears to be an intentional act of violence.”
Just a few hours before the crash, Hinton and other family members met at the police chief’s office Friday morning and watched a police body camera video showing an officer shoot the teen, said Michael Wright, an attorney hired by the family.
Hinton could not make it through the entire video and did not say a word, said Wright, who is not representing Hinton on the crash charges.
“He was distraught, he was upset,” Wright said Saturday. “I can’t tell you whether he was angry. He was just kind of upset, despondent, really upset by what he saw.”
Cincinnati Police Chief Teresa Theetge said the Hamilton County Sheriff’s deputy who died was directing traffic near the University of Cincinnati on graduation day when he was hit by a car that drove into an intersection.
Authorities did not identify the deputy, who retired from the department a few months ago but was continuing to work off-duty assignments, said Hamilton County Sheriff Charmaine McGuffey.
“He was so well-liked and so well-known,” McGuffey said. “What a tremendous loss we have all suffered.”
Authorities said the circumstances of the crash were still under investigation.
“If the facts show this act was intentional, as the charge suggests, I will throw the full force of the law at the perpetrator,” Hamilton County prosecutor Connie Pillich said in a statement Friday.
Hinton’s son, 18-year-old Ryan Hinton, was shot twice and killed by police on Thursday during a chase after officers responded to a call about a stolen car, police said.
The officer who fired told investigators that the suspect pointed a gun at him during the chase, said Cincinnati’s police chief. During a news conference Friday, police showed photos of a semiautomatic handgun that they said he was carrying and another gun that was found in the car.
Body camera video of the shooting released by police Friday showed one officer could be heard saying “he’s got a gun, he’s got a gun” before several shots were fired as Ryan Hinton was running behind an apartment complex.
The video did not clearly show Hinton pointing a gun. The police chief said that the images were blurred because both Hinton and the officer were running and the camera was jostling.
The officer told investigators that Hinton “had the firearm in front of him, he was in like a bladed position, and it was pointed at the officer and he felt threatened for his life,” Theetge said.
There was no indication that he fired at police before he was shot, she said.
