CLEVELAND — Two people indicted in connection with the December 2021 garage collapse at Marine Towers West in Lakewood made their first court appearance in the case Thursday morning.
It comes just weeks after a Cuyahoga County grand jury returned an indictment against the construction company – Atlas Masonry Restoration and Maintenance – along with its owner, 55-year-old Elmer Mekker, and 52-year-old foreman Charles Hawley.
Each has been charged with one count of inducing panic.
Both Mekker and Hawley pleaded not guilty during their arraignment in which the judge set bond at $2,500 each. Both are due back in court for their first pretrial hearing with judge Michael Russo on Tuesday, June 21.
Here’s how the charge is explained by the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office: The charge of inducing panic is to cause the evacuation of any public place, or otherwise cause serious public inconvenience or alarm by committing any offense, with reckless disregard of the likelihood that its commission would cause serious public inconvenience or alarm and result in economic harm of $150,000 or more.
"It is a miracle that the recklessness displayed, not only by Atlas Masonry but the owner and foreman in charge, did not result in serious injury or death," Prosecutor Michael C. O'Malley said when the indictment was announced. "Their poor decisions put hundreds of lives at risk, and they need to be held accountable for that."
O’Malley’s office said Marine Towers had contracted Atlas Masonry Restoration and Maintenance to complete various concrete repairs on the property in November of 2021.
“On December 22, 2021, Charles Hawley and a co-worker began working on the parking garage pillars around 3 p.m.,” O’Malley’s office notes in a press release. “They removed the concrete around two support pillars on the lower level of the parking garage, leaving only exposed rebar to support the structure.”
The next day, just about 18 hours after their work was complete, the parking garage “began to rumble.”
“The first floor of the parking garage collapsed through to the sub-floor level below,” O’Malley’s office continues. “Around 60 seconds before the collapse, an individual exited the parking garage in their vehicle.”
Atlas Masonry was previously convicted in April of this year of one count of failure to secure a permit in Lakewood Municipal Court regarding the Lakewood Marine Towers West parking garage collapse.
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Editor's note: Video in the player above was originally published in a previous story on Dec. 27, 2021.