A Columbus man charged in connection with a 2024 fatal shooting that ended with a car crashing into a building has pleaded guilty to obstructing justice, closing out one piece of a case that has moved through Franklin County courts in fits and starts for more than two years. Timothy Brown, 25, was sentenced to two years of community control at a hearing on August 25, avoiding prison time despite once facing murder and aggravated robbery charges tied to the death of 28-year-old Shandar Weaver.
According to NBC4 WCMH-TV, Brown had initially been charged with murder, aggravated robbery and obstructing justice, and pleaded not guilty to all three before ultimately pleading guilty to obstructing justice in June, per court records. The murder and aggravated robbery charges against him were not pursued. Ohio law classifies obstructing justice as a third-degree felony when it involves aiding a suspect accused of murder or a first-degree felony, carrying a statutory range of 9 to 36 months in prison or community control, according to Not Guilty Adams.
As part of his sentence, Brown must not pick up any new convictions, must complete a behavioral health assessment, and faces 36 months in prison if he violates the terms of his community control. He received credit for 522 days of jail time already served, according to his sentencing sheet. Brown had been held on a $1 million bond after his indictment in January.
A Crash Uncovered a Killing
Weaver suffered a gunshot wound on February 28, 2024, in the 3000 block of East Main Street in Columbus, after which a car crashed into a building. He was taken to a hospital, where he died shortly after being hospitalized. Columbus police did not identify and arrest the three men connected to his death — Brown, Deion Ray and Destin Rivers — until January 2025, nearly 11 months after the shooting, according to 10TV.
Rivers, 22, had fled the state and was arrested in Michigan before being extradited back to Franklin County to face charges. He ultimately pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and aggravated robbery and was sentenced to 22 to 27.5 years in prison. That indefinite sentencing range stems from Ohio's Reagan Tokes Law, which requires a trial judge to set a minimum prison term for non-life first- and second-degree felony convictions along with an automatic maximum equal to 150% of that minimum, according to HMW Law.
Third Co-Defendant's Case Still Unresolved
Ray, 22, had also initially been charged with aggravated robbery, voluntary manslaughter and tampering with evidence. He pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in March, but withdrew that guilty plea in June. Ray has a court appearance scheduled for Wednesday, and it remains unclear what led him to reverse course on his plea.
A Case Set Against a Falling Homicide Rate
The shooting that killed Weaver happened during a year when Columbus saw its overall homicide count drop. Citywide homicides fell 17% in 2024 compared to 2023, bringing the annual total down to roughly 115, and the Columbus Division of Police Homicide Unit closed 76% of its cases that year, up from 75% in 2023 and 63% in 2022. Gun violence still drove much of the city's violent crime in 2024, with 64.6% of felony assaults involving firearms even as police pulled more than 3,250 illegal guns off the streets, per 10TV's earlier reporting.
That decline has continued since. By the middle of 2026, annual homicides in Columbus had dropped by more than half compared to the city's 2021 peak of 205, according to WOSU Public Media. Cases like Weaver's — indicted, pleaded and sentenced through the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas — continue to work their way through the system even as the city's overall violent crime numbers trend downward.
