Coroner releases details in case of Ryan Hinton, the teen shot and killed by a Cincinnati police officer

Ryan was not shot in the back, report says.
Ryan Hinton, 18, was shot to death on May 1, 2025 by a Cincinnati police officer. CONTRIBUTED/WCPO

Ryan Hinton, 18, was shot to death on May 1, 2025 by a Cincinnati police officer. CONTRIBUTED/WCPO

CINCINNATI — Hamilton County Coroner Lakshmi Sammarco released preliminary information on the autopsy of 18-year-old Ryan Hinton, shot to death on May 1 by a Cincinnati police officer.

Sammarco said Ryan had three gunshot wounds — though she couldn’t say whether two of those gunshot wounds were caused by the same bullet or not.

One gunshot wound was through his left forearm, and only damaged soft tissue in his arm, Sammarco said.

Another gunshot wound was found in his left side, under his armpit. That wound was what killed him, Sammarco said. That bullet traveled through his chest, hit the seventh rib, went through the left ventricle of his heart and exited through his sternum, according to the coroner.

A third gunshot wound was found in his “postero-lateral chest” adjacent to his shoulder, Sammarco said. That bullet traveled beneath the skin and only damaged soft tissue; Sammarco said that bullet came to stop just beneath the base of the skull, and the coroner’s office was able to retrieve it.

She said it is possible the bullet that went through Ryan’s arm also went into and through his side, but she said the coroner’s office can’t say for sure if that’s the case, since that bullet was not found by her office. She said they only found fragments of that bullet in Ryan’s body.

Ryan was not shot in the back, Sammarco said.

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