In the late morning of Thursday, Aug. 23, Officer Andrew Mitchell of the Columbus Division of Police in Ohio was working undercover, looking for women selling sex on the city’s West Side. He tried to take Donna Dalton, a 23-year-old mother of two young girls and sex worker, into custody. After what police called “an altercation” in his car, Mitchell shot and killed her.
Mitchell and Dalton were brought to the same hospital; he had wounds where police said she stabbed him in the hand. Officer Mitchell underwent surgery. Dalton was pronounced dead. A media release from the police department, known as the CPD, later described her as “an armed suspect.”
In the days since the incident, more information has trickled out about Mitchell. According to police records in a county court database he has already made 80 prostitution-related arrests in 2018, overwhelmingly of women. And the Columbus police confirmed to The Appeal that he is the subject of an internal affairs investigation, opened before the shooting, and multiple previous complaints.
