COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — The Franklin County Sheriff’s Office has identified the double-homicide suspect who was shot and killed by a deputy Tuesday night at a gas station on the northeast side.
The sheriff’s office said Pozz Striblin, 20, was the suspect wanted in connection with a double homicide on May 31. He was shot at a gas station at Stelzer and Agler roads just after 7 p.m. Tuesday.
Chief Deputy Rick Minerd said in a 1:30 p.m. press conference — viewable below — that Striblin was a registered sex offender and deputies were looking for him after he had failed to come in to update his information. The 20-year-old was added to the sex offender registry as a minor, so the sheriff’s office said his registry record wasn’t publicly available.
A Tier I sex offender, Striblin was convicted in April 2021 of gross sexual imposition with an 8-year-old girl, though the original crime happened in October 2018. The law required Striblin to come in person to register information like his home address and car license plate once a year for 10 years after conviction. He was due to update his registration in April but didn’t show up, and after several ignored reminder letters, Minerd said the sheriff’s office issued a warrant for his arrest for failure to register.
The arrest warrant came out before the sheriff’s office had identified Striblin as a person of interest in the double homicide, but Minerd said it made staff looking for him aware of that as well. The sheriff’s office said SWAT deputies were conducting surveillance on Striblin with the intent to arrest him when an officer-in-trouble call was issued and shots were fired. Striblin was pronounced dead at the scene at 7:19 p.m.
“They were plain clothes if you will,” Minerd said. “However, they had markings on them to identify that they were deputy sheriffs —- like bulletproof vests, ‘Sheriff’ on them, badges, that sort of thing.”
Deputies recovered a weapon from Striblin, but no deputies were injured. Minerd said the deputies did not yet have the sheriff’s office’s new bodycams deployed at the time of the shooting.
Striblin was wanted in connection with a shooting on West Broad Street near I-270 on May 31, where a man driving a car was shot and killed. The car crashed into a concrete barrier, and a female passenger later died as well.
The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation is investigating Striblin’s death.