A 38-year-old man is in stable condition after being shot near E. 105th Street and St. Clair Avenue on Thursday evening, and the chaos that followed didn't end with the shooting itself — a car crash involving two responding Cleveland police officers added a second active investigation to the night.
Cleveland Division of Police Fifth District officers arrived at the shooting scene around 4:32 p.m., according to Cleveland 19 News. When they got there, EMS crews were already transporting the victim to the hospital with a gunshot wound. Police said a verbal argument between the victim and a suspect led to the shooting, and that the suspect ran from officers at the scene.
Cruiser Struck While Responding With Lights and Sirens
As officers rushed to the shooting scene, two primary responding officers — ages 34 and 36 — were involved in a crash of their own while driving with lights and sirens activated, the station's report states. Police said a 2017 Cadillac pulled out of a parking lot to make a left turn and hit the police car. The Cadillac then struck a utility pole near the southeast corner of St. Clair Avenue and E. 115th Street, per the same account.
Additional officers arrived to investigate the shooting even as the crash scene ten numbered street increments away demanded its own response. Fifth District detectives are investigating that case, according to police. Separately, the Accident Investigation Unit responded to the crash, which remains under investigation.
Two Open Cases, No Word Yet on Arrests or Injuries
Cleveland police have not identified the shooting victim or the suspect who ran from the scene, and it remains unclear whether anyone was taken into custody. There is also no public information yet on whether the officers or the Cadillac's driver were hurt in the crash, or how the vehicles and the police car were damaged.
The intersection where Thursday's shooting happened sits along a stretch of St. Clair Avenue that has seen other violent incidents on Cleveland's East Side this year. A shooting near East 79th Street and St. Clair Avenue in May reportedly left two people in serious condition, according to Cleveland 19 News. In July, a shooting elsewhere on Cleveland's East Side killed one man and wounded three others, including teens, as reported by cleveland.com.
The risks officers face while racing to emergency calls were underscored in a separate incident in northern Ohio, where a police sergeant was fatally struck while responding to a crash with emergency lights activated, according to the Ohio State Highway Patrol as reported by 10TV. No such injuries have been reported in Thursday's Cleveland crash. Both the shooting and the crash remain under active and separate investigation.
