CLEVELAND — Newly-released body camera video shows the moment when Cleveland Heights police captured the man accused of leading officers on a chase across two cites before crashing and killing another driver on Wednesday.
Jalen Jackson, 23, is facing several charges, including aggravated murder, aggravated robbery, tampering with evidence, discharging a firearm, weapons under disability and a drug charge. Bond for Jackson was set at $1 million on Friday with a preliminary hearing scheduled for Dec. 13.
Jackson is accused of robbing an Amazon driver at gunpoint Wednesday night and stealing the driver's van. The Amazon driver called it in, leading to a police pursuit. Cleveland Heights Police Chief Chris Britton said one of his officers reported hearing two shots fired as they pursued the white Enterprise van.
A helicopter from the Cleveland Division of Police assisted with the pursuit as it moved into the city. CHPD said officers continued to pursue when the van turned into oncoming traffic on I-90 eastbound.
Body camera video released Friday shows the pursuit lasted at least 20 minutes. Officers followed as the van reached speeds up to 100 miles an hour on I-90. After 18 minutes on the body camera video, you heard officers say the van veered into oncoming traffic, going west in eastbound lanes on I-90.
At 7:54 p.m., a Cleveland Heights police officer involved in the chase can be heard shouting "crash, crash, crash." The officer gets out of his vehicle and immediately begins barking orders to the suspect to get out of the car and get on the ground. Police are then seen running across I-90, where they find Jackson lying beyond the guard rail in a grassy area.
"You can't get away from Cleveland Heights, motherf---er," yelled one of the officers as they put handcuffs on Jackson.
After detaining Jackson, an officer shouts to his comrades to "go check on the driver."
It turned out that the stolen van slammed head on into a car, killing one man. The driver who was killed was identified as 70-year-old Dr. Curtis Birchall from Akron. Birchall ran an anti-aging clinic in Rocky River.
As officers attempted to pick Jackson up, he shouts at them, "I can't walk. My leg broke. I can't walk. My leg is broke, bro." More officers came over to help move Jackson from the ground. He can be heard screaming as he sinks back down.
The officer then confirms the location of the crash as I-90 East near the West 25th Street exit. Units from the Cleveland Division of Police and the Ohio State Highway Patrol are also seen in the video.
Friday's release of the video comes amid questions about whether pursuing officers followed Cleveland Heighs Police Department policy when they chose to continue the chase.
The department's 13-page vehicle pursuit policy says, in part that "vehicle pursuits expose innocent citizens, law enforcement officers and fleeing violators to risk of serious injury or death." It goes on to say that "as a general rule, officers should not pursue a vehicle driving the wrong way on a roadway, highway or freeway."
When pressed from reporters about why officers continued to pursue the van and whether it followed department policy, Cleveland Heights Mayor Kahlil Seren and Britton wouldn't say.
"One of the things that we absolutely do not want to do is jump to any conclusions about this specific incident before taking a very close look at exactly what happened and then comparing that to the requirements of our policy and the considerations that are contained in that policy," Seren said.
"There’s several factors in the policy that give us guidance and relate to decisions to the pursuit," Britton added. "Again, I wasn’t there last night. I wasn’t the officer in charge, so I can’t say or speculate what his decision process was."
The city said they would be looking closely at their police and investigating whether it followed pursuit policy. Seren said the findings of their review would be made public.
3News' Bri Buckley, and Tyler Carey contributed to this report
Previous Reporting:
- $1M bond set for man accused of stealing Amazon van, leading Cleveland Heights police on deadly chase
- Suspect identified in chase involving Cleveland Heights police that ended in deadly crash on I-90
- Police: Pursuit of stolen Amazon van leads to crash on I-90 East in Cleveland; 1 dead, suspect in custody