Cleveland Cops Indicted For Car Chase That Started Over Nothing and Ended With a Fatal Police Shooting

Six cops from the Cleveland Police Department
(CPD) were
indicted on charges related to
a car chase that began when a cop likely mistook the sound of
an engine firing for gun shots and ended with 13 cops firing 137
rounds into the car, killing Timothy Russell, the unarmed driver,
and Malissa Williams, his passenger.

Five of the cops were charged with dereliction of duty. Their
supervisors are accused of allowing the chase, which involved up to
104 of the 227 cops on duty at the time, to get out of control. The
sixth cop, Michael Brelo, was charged with manslaughter. He is
accused of standing on the hood of Russell’s car after the chase
and firing at least 15 shots through the windshield.
Sixty three cops were suspended for up to ten days last year,
although that included none of the 13 cops involved in the actual
shooting, who were then under investigation. One supervisor was
eventually fired.

As an animation created by the Ohio attorney general’s office
showed, 12 other cops fired 122 shots at the car, with one cop
shooting 49 rounds, but none of them were indicted. The county
prosecutor explained that Brelo’s actions were “a stop-and-shoot—no
longer a chase-and shoot,” and that the “law does not allow for a
stop-and-shoot,” citing a recent Supreme Court decision that

found in favor of cops using deadly force to end a car
chase.

In its report, the Associated Press
called Russell and Williams “suspects,” even though no
evidence was found that either of them had fired a weapon toward an
officer (the claim that began the deadly chase), nor even that
anyone had fired any gun in the vicinity of the cop who claimed he
heard it. They were neither suspected nor accused of any specific
crime by the gaggle of cops who pursued them—merely of trying to
elude them.

The city of Cleveland
asked the U.S. Department of Justice to review police policies
after the chase and shooting. That review continues.