John Jefferson
Left: A gunshot (Facebook/Akira Fletcher). Right: Nyema Norton throwing a rock (Facebook/Akira Fletcher). Inset: Akira Fletcher (Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office).
An Ohio woman is behind bars for allegedly shooting two women during an argument earlier this summer. And, she appears to have posted two separate videos documenting some of the violence on that warm night in the Avondale neighborhood of Cincinnati.
Akira Fletcher, 23, stands accused of one count of aggravated murder, according to Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office records.
On Aug. 31, the defendant was arrested. The day before that, she posted her side of the story, with visual receipts, on Facebook.
“This is what happened July 12th, there’s two 911 calls of me asking for them to please send somebody,” the narrative begins. “I was being punched in my face, rocks thrown at me, and Nyema trying to get in my car.”
The woman referred to as “Nyema” in the post appears to be Nyema Norton, 29, one of two women seen in accompanying videos harassing Fletcher. Norton succumbed to her injuries roughly six weeks after being shot. The other woman survived.
The Facebook content all but demands publicity – Cincinnati’s local Fox, ABC, NBC, and CBS affiliates are all tagged in the post.
That night, the violence unfolded slowly and late. Officers arrived at the scene of the crime on Reading Road around 2:30 a.m.
In the first video, Fletcher is inside her car – breathing heavily as the two other women stalk around the outside. After telling the women they are going to jail, the defendant begins narrating.
“She just threw another rock at me,” Fletcher says. “As you can see. She’s slashing my tires. She’s slashing my tires. Her and her cousin – slashing my tires. As you can see. I have a gun in my purse. I have a gun in my purse. They’re trying to make me get out of the car.”
Halfway through the first video, a loud thudding clink is heard. Then, the camera quickly veers to one of the two women apparently causing massive damage to the back window of Fletcher’s car, resulting in a gaping mouth of crooked and jagged glass.
Fletcher then stakes out a half-saddle-like position. She rises from the car seat and appears to stand either partially inside the car or just outside – immediately next to the driver’s side door.
The defendant repeats warning her two assailants they are going to jail. They shout back at her – from a distance of about two cars away at first. The two women pace around a bit – occasionally yelling at Fletcher. One of the women mentions something about Fletcher being pregnant. Fletcher and the other women continue to trade barbs.
“You should be happy you don’t get clapped,” Fletcher shouts back at one point – five times in a row. Then she says: “Come anywhere near me, I bet you’re gonna get clapped.”
The first video ends with Fletcher pulling her car out of an apartment complex parking lot. As she appears to drive away, a commercial from her car radio blares, briefly, picking up in the middle of a sentence: ” –by making an impact together, touching lives for the better.”
The second video cuts in apparently in the middle of something else entirely. By now, Fletcher’s driver’s side window has also become a yawping mess of tempered glass, the footage shows.
The two other women are roughly one car away from Fletcher but then walk right up to the shattered window. She repeats the mantra that they are going to jail and taunts one of the women to hit her again. The woman appears to oblige the request and seemingly rears back and then into the car.
Then, four shots are fired in quick succession.
“She busted my driver side window out to attack me, she continued to try and get in my car to stab me and I let her hit me while I was on the phone with 911 asking for help,” Fletcher’s narrative concludes. “I told them to stop over and over and over again. I never got out my car to fight or anything and I allowed her to punch me more then once.”
Both women were shot and transferred to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. Norton died on Aug. 26.
The Cincinnati Police Department previously chalked the case up to self-defense. But the calculus has apparently changed.
While jail records only show one extant charge of aggravated murder, prosecutors told Cincinnati-based Fox affiliate WXIX that a Hamilton County grand jury recently indicted Fletcher on additional charges including murder and felonious assault.
The defendant is currently being detained without bond.
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