WOODMERE, Ohio — A new civil rights lawsuit against two different Cuyahoga County police departments is raising questions about a police shooting that happened just over a year ago.
"He spent weeks in the hospital," Civil rights attorney Sarah Gelsomino says of her client, Theoplic "Theo" Williams. "He continues to live in pain. Thankfully — I mean, miraculously — he survived."
Court records say Williams was shot in the chest, upper back, and foot by a Orange Village police officer near the Eton Chagrin Boulevard shopping center in Woodmere back on Oct. 7, 2021.
"He had a weapon, which he drew," Woodmere Police Chief Sheila Mason said the day of the incident. "So, once the officer asked him to raise his hands, he refused."
However, a complaint filed in federal court by Williams' legal team states someone called 911 on him that day. While he did have a gun, (which he owned legally) and did run from police in fear, the lawsuit claims Williams did not have the firearm when he was shot and never raised it toward officers.
"He was entitled to have a gun," Gelsomino told 3News. "Rather than talking to Theo about what was happening, the cops shot at him, shot him."
Gelsomino says there's no body camera footage of the incident, and that Williams continues to have physical and emotional pain as a result of the encounter. She hopes this suit sends a message about deadly force.
"The use of deadly force is the most serious thing an officer can do," she said. "There needs to be serious justification that the officer needs to offer in those cases."
WKYC has reached out to the law directors for the villages of both Orange and Woodmere, but has not gotten a response, at this time. Williams was convicted of obstructing official business in connection with the incident, but was found not guilty of receiving stolen property and aggravated menacing. Additional charges of assaulting an officer and resisting arrest were dropped, and the court subsequently waived all fines.