Video: Cleveland Police Chase Suspect Who Shoots at Officers, Leaves 5 Injured
What to know
- Cleveland police released body and dashboard camera footage of a Memorial Day weekend shooting that turned into a high-speed chase, injuring five officers across gunfire and crashes.
- The suspect allegedly fired at officers from a vehicle—striking one with shrapnel—and was later pursued at speeds topping 80 mph before crashing and fleeing on foot.
- Police said the suspect fired at multiple patrol cars before being arrested.
By Lucas Daprile
Source cleveland.com
CLEVELAND—Cleveland police on Friday released body camera footage of a Memorial Day weekend shooting and high-speed chase that led to multiple crashes and five officers injured.
The incident broke out on May 23 around 2:15 p.m. when Cleveland police were patrolling near East 57th Street and Fleet Avenue. That’s where three people flagged them down and told them a person had been shot.
The victim was walking on Fleet Avenue near 54th Street when a man in a light blue Nissan drove by, shot him and then fled, witnesses told police.
The victim then ran to Open Pantry Food Mart, a neighborhood convenience store, according to the police report.
But when officers started investigating, they reported seeing around scene that matched the description of the suspect’s vehicle.
When officers tried to pull the car over, the suspect, 24-year-old Brian Branch of Cleveland, stuck a gun out the window and fired, police said.
“As soon as I saw him, pow,” one officer is heard saying on body camera.
The bullet struck a piece of the driver’s side door frame and the shrapnel from that hit an officer, according to the incident report.
That’s when Branch became a “mobile, active shooter,” Cleveland Chief of Police Dorothy Todd said.
“He could have killed anyone,” Todd said.
Body camera footage, which police played at a Friday press conference, shows the officer who’d been hit by shrapnel pulling his vehicle down a road far from Branch. The officer parks and checks his elbow, as multiple other officers gathered around him. At this point, Branch is not seen in the body camera footage, having driven away.
Additional footage then shows police, who had found Branch, engage in a car chase as he took off. That chase reached at least 80 mph, at times entering residential areas.
At one point, an officer fires from his moving vehicle at Branch’s moving vehicle. Police said Branch had shot at the officer before the officer returned fire.
Todd said the decision of that officer to fire would be evaluated as part of an internal investigation into the incident, but that she would not “judge that officer’s actions and say that they’re not appropriate.”
Todd said that was the only officer who fired during the incident.
By the end of the video, Branch crashes and runs out of his vehicle, leading officers on a foot chase.
An officer tackles Branch, and police can be seen pulling his hair and putting a hand on his neck. Branch was brought to the hospital with a suspected broken leg then released and booked into Cuyahoga County jail.
Branch was charged with five counts of felonious assault. Additional charges are pending, Cleveland police spokesman Sgt. Wilfredo Diaz said.
In total, two officers were injured because of gunfire and three because of car accidents, police said. No injuries were considered life-threatening, but none of the injured officers have yet to return to duty, Todd said.
Police said Branch fired his weapon at three separate patrol cars, one of which was carrying a K-9 named Vader. The K-9 was not injured in the incident, Todd said.
A 2013 order barred Cleveland police from shooting at or from moving vehicles, though an exception to the rule would be deadly force used against officers by some means other than the car – like gunfire.
When the order was put in place under former police Chief Michael McGrath, it mirrored others in cities including Philadelphia, New York and Miami, the intent being to minimize the risk of stray rounds and car crashes.
“Every pursuit that we have ... they’re all scary,” Todd told reporters. “But this again shows that we do have a pursuit policy. The officers were acting within that pursuit policy, because you have a dangerous violent felon. So that is what I’m looking at right now.”
Clarification: A quote from Police Chief Dorothy Todd was clarified to indicate Todd said she would not judge actions of the officer who fired as inappropriate.
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