Photojournalist Andy Grimm was shot, without warning by Clark County Sheriff’s deputy, Jake Shaw, in Ohio on Monday

An Ohio sheriff’s deputy shot a news photographer after confusing his camera and tripod for a weapon, on Labor Day.
The Clark County deputy shot New Carlisle News photojournalist Andy Grimm in the side as he unloaded a tripod from his vehicle to snap pictures of a traffic stop.
Grimm was on an assignment around 10 p.m. on Monday to take pictures of a lightning storm. While he was taking pictures, a traffic stop occurred on the same road, according to his paper.
According to The New Carlisle News Andy Grimm “had his camera in his hand” when he was shot in his side by a Clark County sheriff’s deputy in New Carlisle, which north of Dayton.
“I was going out to take pictures and I saw the traffic stop and I thought, ‘Hey, cool. I’ll get some pictures here.'” the victim recounted from his hospital bed.
Grimm said he pulled into a parking lot in full view of the deputy, got out of his Jeep and started setting up his tripod and camera.
Without warning, the deputy, later identified as Jake Shaw, opened fire as Grimm was setting up the tripod.
“I turned around from the Jeep and it seemed like instant, I heard pop-pop,” Grimm said from his hospital bed.
One bullet struck him in the chest and Grimm said another may have grazed his shoulder.
Deputy Shaw and the victim know each other. After the shooting the officer rushed over to the injured cameraman, repeatedly saying, “I thought it was a gun,” Grimm said.
“Now that I’m OK, I’m not so much mad, but when I was on the ground and in the back of the ambulance, I was kind of angry at him,” Grimm said.
New Carlisle News Publisher Dale Grimm said the photographer, left work minutes before the shooting to chase a lightning storm passing over the small town, which boasts a population of about 5,700 people 20 miles north of Dayton. He encountered the traffic stop and turned his camera toward that instead.

Grimm was shot after getting out of his Jeep, attempting to set up his tripod in full view of the cop who shot him

He learned of the shooting when Grimm called from the ambulance.
“He said there was no warning, no ‘show me hands’ or ‘drop what you have,’” the paper owner said, while changing Tuesday’s front page to reflect his son’s shooting around 3 a.m.
From the hospital, Grimm retraced his steps leading up to the shooting, wondering what caused the deputy to reach for his gun.
“Until I hear his side, I guess I won’t know what I did wrong,” Grimm said.
The newspaper speculated that the deputy may have mistaken the camera for a weapon. Grimm said the deputy Jake Shaw, gave him no warning.
“I was just doing my job,” he said. “I know Jake. I like Jake. I don’t want him to lose his job over this.”
The victim’s dad who is also his employer, said his son isn’t looking for swift punishment.
“Andy does not want him to get fired,” Dale Grimm said, calling the shooting a misunderstanding.
“This is a small town. Everybody knows everybody. It was just a terrible misunderstanding,” his father said.
The state’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation is probing the incident.