CLEVELAND (WJW) — The FOX 8 I-Team has obtained video showing a chaotic and deadly scene that involved a barrage of gunshots, including Cleveland police gunfire.
It happened at East 105th Street and Garfield Avenue just before dawn on St. Patrick’s Day. The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner said a gunshot killed 26-year-old Antwoina M. Carter.
Police body camera video gives us the first look at what happened, as it happened.
Investigators and law enforcement sources said officers saw cars speeding down the block, and they heard gunshots from one car. Then, officers started firing shots.
On the video, you hear many gunshots before seeing any cars come into view. You also see officers firing shots, taking cover and calling out, “Shots fired. Shots fired.”
The medical examiner this week said it appears Carter did not die from police gunfire.
“Preliminary testing does not indicate that police activity was directly responsible for the decedent’s death,” Dr. Thomas Gilson is quoted in a news release.
The Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department is investigating.
This week, the Sheriff’s Department said police found Carter at a vehicle that crashed at the scene. The other vehicle took off.
Police had gone there after getting a 911 call just before 4 a.m. from a woman identifying herself as Antwoina Carter. She said someone was sitting outside her house who’d been threatening her.
Police said they also had been told someone had shot out a car window, but they did not shoot into the house.
As the city released the body camera video, Police Chief Dorothy Todd also released a recorded statement. She stressed Cleveland police are not releasing many details now, with the case under investigation by another agency. She said the video is only a small part of the investigation.
Law enforcement sources have told the I-Team the officers believed someone was shooting at them.
The police union President Andy Gasiewski said he can’t comment on specifics with the investigation pending, but that “100 percent, there was an element of self-defense.”
Ed Gallek
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