CLEVELAND — The teenager who attempted to murder a Cleveland police detective in March 2023 learned his fate Wednesday morning.
Eighteen-year-old Jayrion Church was sentenced to 20-25 years in prison for the attempted aggravated murder of Detective Mark Bahrijczuk.
"If it weren’t for my coworkers quick action to put a tourniquet on me, I would have bled out, and you — you, Jayrion — would have taken away so much more than a life," Bahrijczuk said during the sentencing hearing. "You would have taken away the chance for my son to grow up with me. You would have taken away a husband from an amazing wife, a son to a mother, and a brother to a sister."
On Feb. 5, Church pleaded guilty to the following charges:
- One count of attempted aggravated murder
- One count of failure to comply
- One count of improperly handling firearms in a motor vehicle
- One count of receiving stolen property
- One count of having weapons under disability
The shooting happened on March 14, 2023, when Church — who was 17 at the time — was driving a stolen Kia with two other passengers near East 30th Street and Cedar Avenue.
A detective spotted the stolen vehicle and attempted to stop it. Cleveland police said that Church did not pull over and continued to drive, crashing into a brick pillar before fleeing from the stolen Kia on foot.
As Bahrijczuk got out of his car, Church lifted his firearm with a 50-round magazine attached and fired four shots at Bahrijczuk. The shots hit Bahrijczuk twice, causing him multiple injuries to his arm and leg.
"For a brief moment as I was falling to the ground, I felt darkness surrounding me," Bahrijczuk told the court. "That moment felt extremely long, but I imagined it was death. Was this how my life was going to end? Will I ever see my wife and my son, who was 3 months old at the time? Will I be able to see him grow up? What will my wife do without me? That’s how long that brief moment felt to me."
His wife Alexandria said she was holding her baby son at the time she learned about the shooting, "thinking the very worst."
"Was my son going to grow up without a dad, and was I going to be a widow?" she remembered asking herself. "My husband was shot at not once, not twice, not three times, but four times. Four times. Jayrion's intentions were to kill my husband, all because of a stolen car and a gun."
Alexandira told Church he took away a year from their lives and replaced it with surgery, physical therapy, sleepless nights and PTSD. Bahrijczuk wasn't able to hold his son when he returned from the hospital, and the Bahrijczuks told Church he should expect no forgiveness from them.
"I apologize for this happening to you, Mr. Bahrijczuk," Church told him in court. "I hope this never happens to you again."
After the shooting, Church fled the scene and was not arrested until April 14. DNA evidence, video evidence, and phone evidence linked Church to the crime, and his attorney asked the judge to consider his young age, his background, and what he described as his psychotic illness, but prosecutors dismissed that explanation.
"Jayrion Church knew right from wrong. He made the selfish decision to shoot Detective Bahrijczuk four times, attempting to kill him over a stolen Kia," Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley said. "I cannot imagine the pain those decisions caused Detective Bahrijczuk, his family, and his fellow officers in the Cleveland Division of Police. I hope Jayrion Church spends the next 20 years contemplating the decisions he made and working to better himself to become a productive member of our community. My thoughts and prayers remain with Detective Bahrijczuk as he continues to recover from his two gunshot wounds."
