CLEVELAND, Ohio — A Cuyahoga County grand jury has declined to indict the three officers involved in the fatal shooting of a teenager at his home last summer.
Cleveland Heights Mayor Khalil Seren told reporters Monday that an internal review will take place and that police policies will be examined. State prosecutors presented the case to the grand jury on Friday.
On Aug. 29, Cleveland Heights officers responded to the 1300 block of Yellowstone Road because Christian Thomas, 18, and his father, Ferrel, had been arguing. Police reports indicated that Christian Thomas took psilocybin mushrooms and got ahold of his father’s handgun.
A standoff began with Christian and Ferrel Thomas inside the house, where the father tried to convince his son to put the gun down.
Ferrel Thomas said at some point his son fired the gun, and police were eventually able to convince the father to leave the house, cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer reported.
Christian Thomas eventually fled the house and police fatally shot him, body camera footage shows. Police said they recovered a gun at the scene, but body camera footage does not show whether Thomas was holding the gun when he was shot.
“We’re forced to make split-second decisions based on information you have right there at that moment,” Cleveland Heights Police Chief Christopher Britton told reporters Monday.
Police later searched the home and found psilocybin mushrooms, a pound of marijuana, LSD, three suspected fentanyl pills, cocaine and bags of suspected methamphetamine.
“This wasn’t the outcome any of us wished for,” Britton said.
The officers who fired their guns that day were placed on an extended period of leave following the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation review. They have returned to duty, Britton said.
The Ohio attorney general’s office posted several videos and audios of the incident on its website, but it has not provided any investigative reports.
Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer reached out to Stanley Jackson, an attorney representing the Thomas family. Jackson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. He previously said the shooting was not justified and that police were “unprepared” for the interaction.
Seren said that he doesn’t believe any officers showed up with the intention of harming Thomas.
Though the criminal investigation is complete, the city continues to review its policies involving the incident. The department’s
Bureau of Professional Standards, headed by Capt. Ernest Williams
, is conducting the review.
In the meantime, Seren said he is pushing to expand a program that sends mental health professionals to 911 calls alongside police officers. Currently, the program is only available during typical business hours, but Seren said he wants to expand that to nighttime hours as well. The Thomas shooting happened at night.
“We lost an 18-year-old Cleveland Heights kid. We lost all of the potential that life had,” Seren said.
