Former Columbus police officer Ricky Anderson will serve three years of probation, with no prison time, after Franklin County Court of Common Pleas Judge Julie Lynch sentenced him on Wednesday, November 4, in the 2022 shooting death of Donovan Lewis, according to reporting by The Columbus Dispatch. Anderson, 63, a 30-year veteran who served as a K-9 officer, had entered an Alford plea in September to reckless homicide, a plea that acknowledged enough evidence to support a conviction without admitting guilt, in exchange for a murder charge being dropped.
The sentence closes the criminal case more than four years after Lewis died. Reckless homicide carried a maximum of three years in prison, and the judge could have imposed up to five years of probation, The Columbus Dispatch reported in its September plea coverage. Instead, Anderson received three years of community control and is now a convicted felon, a status his own defense noted will bar him from owning a gun.
The shooting happened around 2 a.m. on August 30, 2022, at Lewis’s apartment on Sullivant Avenue in Columbus’s Hilltop neighborhood on the West Side, where officers had gone to serve arrest warrants, according to The Columbus Dispatch and an Ohio Court of Appeals decision in the related civil case. Officers knocked for several minutes, and two people who came to the door were told Lewis needed to come outside, The Columbus Dispatch reported.
When Lewis did not come out, Anderson searched the apartment with his K-9, according to The Columbus Dispatch. Body-camera video showed Anderson opening a bedroom door and firing a shot less than a second later, the Dispatch reported. Lewis was sitting up in bed holding an object that was later determined to be a vape pen, and he was struck in the abdomen and pronounced dead at 3:19 a.m., according to the court decision. Anderson told investigators he believed the vape pen was a weapon, The Columbus Dispatch reported.
The case moved slowly through the system after that night. The Franklin County Coroner’s Office ruled the death a homicide on October 25, 2022, according to The Columbus Dispatch. Anderson retired in bad standing on March 3, 2023, and he was indicted on murder and reckless homicide charges on August 4, 2023.
At Wednesday’s sentencing hearing, Judge Lynch acknowledged the family’s pain but said Lewis’s death, in her words as quoted by The Columbus Dispatch, "wasn’t intentional" and "wasn’t homicide." "What the family wants, really, is vengeance, and what we are here for is justice," Judge Lynch said, as quoted by The Columbus Dispatch.
Anderson apologized in court, as quoted by The Columbus Dispatch: "I do apologize to each and every one of you. I’ve suffered a lot. … We all suffered." Two family members left the courtroom as he spoke, The Columbus Dispatch reported. Defense attorney Mark Collins asked for community control, arguing, as quoted by The Columbus Dispatch, "The law asks us to place officers in life or death situations and expects them to be perfect. There are some circumstances, your honor, where perfect isn’t possible."
For Lewis’s family, the hearing was about a life cut short before it had fully begun. Lewis’s son, Donovan Jr., never met his father, and his brother Tariq Stewart said, as quoted by The Columbus Dispatch, "His son will never hear his laugh, hear his dad’s voice." His mother, Rebecca Duran, said she still wakes at 3 a.m., around the time Lewis was pronounced dead, and his sister Tatiana Crowder said in a statement read in court, as quoted by The Columbus Dispatch, "He spent years playing the system. It was like a wound being repeatedly cut open."
Franklin County Prosecutor Shayla Favor, in a statement reported by The Columbus Dispatch, said her office respects the court’s decision but that a sentence with no prison time "fails to adequately reflect the gravity of this offense." "Today’s sentence does not diminish the value of Donovan’s life, nor does it change our belief that no one is above the law, regardless of their position, title, or the uniform they wear," Favor said in the statement reported by The Columbus Dispatch.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on
What we know: the criminal case is closed with Wednesday’s sentence; Anderson is a convicted felon serving three years of community control, with no prison time imposed, following his September Alford plea to reckless homicide. What we’re still waiting on: the outcome of the separate civil lawsuit against Anderson and the City of Columbus, and whether any issues arise during Anderson’s period of community control.
Family attorney Bart Keyes, in a statement reported by The Columbus Dispatch, said, "Donovan’s family waited more than four years for this day, hoping the sentence would reflect what happened to him, and it’s hard for them that it didn’t."
What happens next is the civil trial. Keyes said in his statement, as reported by The Columbus Dispatch, "In February, Donovan’s family will have their day in court, and we’ll ask a jury to decide what losing him has meant to them." The civil lawsuit against Anderson and the City of Columbus is scheduled to go to trial in February, after the Ohio Court of Appeals ruled in June 2026 that the case could proceed. No further criminal sentencing steps remain.
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