Andrea Ellis: Mom Calls 911 After Cutting Herself, Cop Shows Up And Shoots Her 4-Year-Old Daughter
Ava Ellis, a 4-year-old girl, started school in a wheelchair after a bizarre and mind-boggling police screw-up in June, when her mom, Andrea, cut herself on some glass, only to have a police officer show up at the house and shoot the little girl in the leg. The unbelievable incident was featured on a recent Inside Edition TV report.
The mom has now posted her own account of shooting on a Facebook page, saying that not only did Columbus, Ohio, police officer Jonathan Thomas shoot her little girl by “accident” — he was trying to shoot the family dog — but that he refused to even apologize and simply turned and left their home without even calling for help.
Paramedics showed up and treated the little girl, rushing Ava to a hospital as she asked her mother over and over again, “Mommy, am I going to die?”
The near-tragedy took place on June 19, when Andrea Ellis got a nasty cut, courtesy of a piece of glass — a frightening but unfortunately routine household accident. Her sister, Brandie Kelly, was visiting the home at the time, and frantically called 911, declaring that her sister was “bleeding all over the place,” and that she needed a paramedic.
Thomas was in the Chandler Drive neighborhood, and Kelly spotted him from the front porch of the Ellis house, yelling to the officer to summon a paramedic.
Thomas, who had been responding to an unrelated call in the area, approached the home. But when he got to the front door, that’s when things went south in a hurry.
Andrea Ellis asked her sister to shut the family’s friendly, 45-pound, mixed-breed dog, Patches, in another room until the emergency was taken care of. But Patches heard a stranger in the house and turned around.
What happened next differs depending on who tells the story. Thomas claimed the dog “charged” him. But Ellis wrote on the Prayers For Ava Facebook page that Patches barked, but “but never lunged, charged, or attempted to bite” the cop.
But the first reaction Thomas had was to draw his service weapon and open fire. While even shooting the dog appears to be a questionable decision, Thomas simply ignored the fact that 4-year-old Ava and her 8-year-old cousin, Madison, were standing about two feet behind the barking dog, about eight to 10 feet from Thomas, according to Ellis’s account.
“My sister and I were feet away from the door and Patches was inside the door way when we heard the gun shot… Within seconds I noticed Ava lying on the floor with 2 holes in her leg (entrance and exit) and blood everywhere.”
Ellis said that her sister, understandably upset, tried to ask Thomas why he fired his gun, but the officer wanted no part of that conversation. In fact, Ellis alleges, the officer got back into his police cruiser and drove away before paramedics even showed up on the scene.
“Officer Thomas then told my sister to stop yelling at him and walked back to his vehicle… Officer Thomas never said sorry, never said it was an accident, never said that he called for help or was going to call for help, never asked if Ava was ok, and never asked if he could check on Ava. Officer Thomas went back to his vehicle and started to pull away.”
Ava is now in a wheelchair and may walk with a limp for the rest of her life, Andrea Ellis says that doctors have told her. Columbus police say they are “investigating” the shooting of little Ava and that they are “grateful to learn that [Ava’s] healing is under way.”
[Featured Image: Prayers For Ava / Facebook]
