cuyahoga county justice center. he pursued the car and something went out over the police radio that indicated an officer-involved shooting. and that s why there were so many police officers involved. this was a 22-minute high-speed chase there were 62 police cars. as we said 137 bullets were shot into this car, 49 of them were from brelo. this is what we know about the victims, we can t forget about the victims here. you re wondering why were they running? why didn t they stop? apparently timothy russell, who is 43 years old, had alcohol in his system. melissa williams had consumed marijuana. both had tested positive for cocaine. but russell williams was shot 23 times. melissa williams was shot 24 times and even you know the assistant prosecutor says timothy russell made some bad decisions that night, but it should not have been a death sentence for him. so joey when we look at the defense in this case brelo s defense, here s whey told the ohio bureau of investigations
the last was about 20 seconds, essentially be a solves brelo of causing her death, if believed. the very latest williams could have sustained wound 1 to the head was during the 20th second of shooting. which is to say the last shot. subtracting from that the 12 seconds at a minimum it took for her to die from the fatal chest wound, or wounds she would have been hit by those bullets to the chest no later than eight seconds into all of the shooting. and all of the shots taken by all 13 officers including brelo, during those first eight seconds, have been deemed by the state as legally justifiable. even if one arbitrarily cuts off half the minimum time williams
doubt as with williams that he caused at least one of them. i find it possible but not beyond a reasonable doubt, that he caused two of them. i cannot however, as mentioned, find beyond a reasonable doubt, which of the four fatal wounds he caused. in russell s case it is likely that he is responsible for 15-c given that shot s downward and right-to-left trajectory and brelo s likely spot on the hood more or less between williams and russell. which put brelo slightly to russell s right. so for both timothy russell and melissa williams i have found beyond a reasonable doubt that brelo fired at least one shot which by itself would have caused russell s death.
toward him, and then slammed into car 238 to brelo s left. he thought he saw both people in the malibu with something black in their hands. gunfire was erupting in front of him. apparently coming from the suspects. and the car was still running. under the totality of these circumstances, he perceived that imminent threat of death or great bodily harm to himself and other officers. and he decided to use deadly force to seize the malibu s occupants. the same decision was made by 12 of his fellow police officers all of whom surely made many of the same observations as brelo. i find by a preponderance of the evidence that brelo s decision to use deadly force against russell and williams was based on probable cause to believe that they threatened imminent
recognized not safe and put all the other officers in the vicinity at risk of his becoming a victim and they re having to attempt now to save his life. in other words, because brelo put his own life in danger. kitsaris later backed up his criticism of brelo stems from actions he took that were contrary to his training and not from the harm that could befall russell and williams from those actions. by testifying as follows. question: but then why would it be unreasonable for him to get up and eliminate this threat? answer for the exact reasons he gave for why he did what he did. which were in my opinion, not objectively reasonable decisions. question what do you mean?