Columbus police have charged a 16-year-old boy in the Oct. 30 shooting at a Southwest Side condo that killed 18-year-old Aaliyah Chan and wounded two other people, according to a Columbus Division of Police media release reported by The Columbus Dispatch. The teen, Jaycier Armstrong, faces delinquency counts of murder, aggravated robbery and felonious assault, police told The Columbus Dispatch, and detectives are asking for the public’s help finding him.
The charges, announced Nov. 5, are the first named step toward accountability in a shooting that unfolded in the 1000 block of Hardesty Place West, a residential street on Columbus’ Southwest Side. Police told The Columbus Dispatch that Armstrong has not been taken into custody, which is why detectives took the unusual step of publicly identifying a juvenile suspect: they want tips on where he is.
The shooting happened at about 7:45 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 30, when Columbus police were called to the condo on a report of gunfire, according to the police media release reported by The Columbus Dispatch. Officers found one person suffering from at least one gunshot wound, and that victim told police a second person had also been shot and was in the basement of the condo.
Medics took the first victim to a local hospital in critical condition, police said in the release reported by The Columbus Dispatch. The second victim, identified as Aaliyah Chan, was pronounced dead at the scene at 7:56 p.m. A third victim took themselves to a hospital, was treated and was later released, according to the police account reported by The Columbus Dispatch.
Chan was a cheerleader at Briggs High School and graduated from the school this past spring, The Columbus Dispatch reported. She had planned to attend cosmetology school at the Ohio State School of Cosmetology, according to her LinkedIn page, The Columbus Dispatch reported — plans that ended in a basement she had no reason to fear entering.
Her father, Paul Chan, told The Columbus Dispatch on Nov. 3 that his daughter was at the condo while her boyfriend was getting a haircut, and that she was not the intended target of the shooting. That detail, reported by The Columbus Dispatch from the family’s account, has shaped how the Southwest Side has absorbed the killing: an 18-year-old graduate caught in someone else’s robbery.
The charges themselves sketch the shape of the case police are building, as reported by The Columbus Dispatch: a robbery at the condo that turned into gunfire. Police have described Armstrong’s alleged role through the three delinquency counts — murder, aggravated robbery and felonious assault — but the detailed allegations behind those counts have not been laid out publicly beyond the media release, and Armstrong is presumed innocent unless the charges are proven in court.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on
What is confirmed, from the Columbus Division of Police release reported by The Columbus Dispatch: a 16-year-old suspect has been charged with delinquency murder, aggravated robbery and felonious assault; three people were shot on Oct. 30; and Chan died at the scene. What is not yet known: where Armstrong is, whether anyone else took part in the robbery police describe, and whether prosecutors will seek to have the case transferred from juvenile court to adult court in Franklin County Common Pleas.
Also still unanswered is the condition of the first victim, whom police described on Oct. 30 as hospitalized in critical condition; no public update on that victim’s recovery has been reported. And while police have asked the public to help locate Armstrong, they have not said, in the reporting by The Columbus Dispatch, whether they believe he is still in Columbus or how long the search may take.
After police identified Armstrong as a suspect, Paul Chan told The Columbus Dispatch on Nov. 5: “We’re just glad that we’re getting closer to getting closure. I am more than sad, more than depressed that one act destroyed multiple families.” He also told The Columbus Dispatch that he wants Armstrong “miserable” and “behind bars.”
The case is the second Columbus homicide this week to move from investigation to charges against a teenager. In a separate case, a teen was charged with murder in the May Migration Lane killing of Samir Mayes, and Columbus courts are also closing older accountability cases, including the probation sentence for the retired officer who shot Donovan Lewis.
Anyone who knows where Armstrong is can contact the Columbus police Homicide Unit at 614-645-4730 or Central Ohio Crime Stoppers at 614-461-8477, police told The Columbus Dispatch. Tips to Crime Stoppers can be given anonymously.
What happens next is, first, an arrest: the charges cannot move through Franklin County’s juvenile system until Armstrong is in custody. Once he is, a judge will decide the path of the case, including whether it stays in juvenile court — the decision that will determine what sentence he could ultimately face.
Photo: Becker1999, CC BY