COLUMBUS, Ohio — A Columbus police SWAT team arrested a 16-year-old on Monday, November 9, in connection with the October 30 shooting that killed 18-year-old Aaliyah Chan, a Columbus City Schools graduate, during what detectives believe was an attempted robbery on the city’s Southwest Side, according to a Columbus Division of Police media release.
The teenager, identified in the police release as Jaycier C. Armstrong, 16, faces charges of delinquency murder, aggravated robbery and felonious assault, The Columbus Dispatch reported. Police said he was taken first to the Franklin County Court of Domestic Relations to be processed and was then to be held at the Franklin County Juvenile Intervention Center, The Columbus Dispatch reported. Television stations in Columbus also reported the SWAT arrest on November 9.
Chan was shot on the evening of October 30 at a condominium in the 1000 block of Hardesty Place West, according to the Columbus Division of Police. Officers were dispatched at about 7:45 p.m. on a report of a shooting and found one wounded person, who told officers a second person had also been shot in the basement of the apartment, the police release said. Chan was pronounced dead at the scene at 7:56 p.m., police said. Two other adults were wounded in the shooting, according to police accounts reported by The Columbus Dispatch.
Detectives said from their preliminary investigation that they believe the shooting stemmed from an attempted robbery, the police release said. That account has not changed as the case has moved from the initial response to the identification of a suspect and, now, an arrest.
Paul Chan, Aaliyah Chan’s father, told The Columbus Dispatch on November 3 that his daughter was at the condominium while her boyfriend was getting a haircut when the shooting began, and that she was not the intended target. He told The Columbus Dispatch she had planned to attend cosmetology school at the Ohio State School of Cosmetology.
Mike Brown, a spokesperson for Columbus City Schools, told The Columbus Dispatch on November 2 that Chan graduated from Briggs High School this past spring. She was 18 years old.
The timeline, drawn from the Columbus Division of Police release and The Columbus Dispatch’s reporting, runs like this: the shooting happened at about 7:45 p.m. on October 30; police publicly identified Chan as the victim on November 2, in an updated homicide report dated November 5; the teenager was charged while still at large, with The Columbus Dispatch reporting on November 6 that he was not yet in custody; and the SWAT arrest followed on November 9.
For the Briggs High School community, the case has meant mourning a graduate from the class of 2026 less than six months after commencement. Chan’s father told The Columbus Dispatch she was not the intended target, a detail police have not disputed; detectives’ only public account of a motive remains the attempted-robbery finding in the police release.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on
What we know: police have confirmed the date, time and location of the October 30 shooting, Chan’s identity, that two other people were wounded, that detectives believe an attempted robbery preceded the gunfire, and that a 16-year-old suspect was charged and then arrested by a SWAT team on November 9, according to the Columbus Division of Police. What we are still waiting on: whether prosecutors will seek to have the teenager’s case transferred to adult court, whether any additional suspects are charged, and the full court schedule in Franklin County. Police have not announced any additional arrests in the case.
The arrest closes one chapter of a case that Columbus homicide detectives have worked since late October. In a separate Ohio homicide case this week, a Cleveland man was convicted of murder in a 2025 Akron shooting, a reminder of how long the path from arrest to verdict can run. And in another case investigators are still working to close, an 18-year-old was identified as the victim of a fatal Maple Heights apartment shooting.
Anyone with information about the October 30 shooting can contact the Columbus police Homicide Unit at 614-645-4730 or provide an anonymous tip to Central Ohio Crime Stoppers at 614-461-8477, police said.
What happens next: the teenager’s case begins in Franklin County’s juvenile system, where a judge will set the next hearings and prosecutors will decide whether to pursue a transfer to adult court. NewsForce247 will follow the case as those decisions are made and as court records become public.