CLEVELAND (AP) – Attorneys are scheduled to make their closing arguments Tuesday in the trial of a Cleveland patrolman charged in the deaths of two unarmed people in a 137-shot barrage of police gunfire.
Michael Brelo, 31, faces a maximum sentence of 22 years in prison if convicted on two counts of voluntary manslaughter. The judge who is deciding Brelo’s case has said he likely will not deliver a verdict before May 15.
Brelo was one of 13 officers who fired at a car with Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams inside after a high-speed chase on Nov. 29, 2012. Brelo was the only officer charged criminally because prosecutors said he fired his final 15 rounds after the car had stopped and Russell and Williams were no longer a threat to officers’ lives.
Defense attorneys argued and sound experts for both sides testified that at least one other officer fired a gun during Brelo’s final volley. Experts also testified for the defense that shots fired by other officers could have killed Russell and Williams, who were each shot more than 20 times.
Prosecutors contend that Russell, 43, and Williams, 30, were still alive when Brelo fired “kill shots” through the windshield while standing on the hood of Russell’s beat-up Chevy Malibu. Brelo, who did not testify at trial, told investigators about a week after the shooting that he did not remember being on the Malibu.
A number of police officers who also shot at the Malibu invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when subpoenaed by prosecutors to testify at trial. A rookie officer, however, testified that he stopped firing that night when he saw someone on the hood of the Malibu.