CLEVELAND — City officials said Tuesday they’re firing six police officers involved in a 137-shot barrage that killed two unarmed people after a high-speed chase.
Those officers included Michael Brelo, a patrolman acquitted of manslaughter charges in May for having fired the last 15 shots of the barrage in East Cleveland on Nov. 29, 2012. The chase began when officers standing outside police headquarters mistook the sound of a beat-up Chevrolet Malibu backfiring as a gunshot.
Six more officers who fired during the barrage face suspensions ranging from 21 to 30 days, said Public Safety Director Michael McGrath, the former police chief. A total of 13 officers had been notified they faced administrative discipline, and one of them has retired.
The president of Cleveland’s largest police union, Steve Loomis, vowed to fight the discipline and said grievances appealing the firings were filed Tuesday. He described the firings as unbelievable, unprecedented and politically motivated.
“It’s tragic that it went down this way, but at the end of the day, two people high on crack cocaine, high on marijuana, one of them intoxicated, made the decisions that they made, and we responded to them,” Loomis said. “And we responded within our training.”
The officers had been cited for joining the chase and leaving the city without permission. More seriously, some were accused of endangering other officers by creating a crossfire situation. McGrath said officials reviewed hundreds of pages of related documents and evidence to reach decisions on discipline.
The high-speed chase involved 62 police cruisers and more than 100 officers. The shooting killed both occupants of the car. Timothy Russell was hit by 24 shots, Malissa Williams by 23.
