CUYAHOGA COUNTY — There are calls for change in policy in Cuyahoga County after the county waited nearly four months to release body camera video of a deputy shooting a teenager.
News 5 Investigators, along with Mark Puente with the Marshall Project—Cleveland, shared our months-long investigation on Wednesday, along with footage released by the county just hours prior.
The video shows Deputy Isen Vajusi firing his gun several times last October, seven seconds after he and another deputy saw the car they were chasing wreck.
"Hey, stop, stop (shots), he's got a gun. Stop, get on the ground. Radio, shots fired, shots fired. Male was reaching. I swear it wasn't me,” the deputy said.
The video does not show what the deputy saw.
A 15-year-old boy was wounded in the thigh. His mom says her son was running away when he was shot.
In the video, the deputy is heard saying he thought the teen had a gun.
A gun was later found, but it is unclear exactly where. Records show the boy and two other teens were suspects in a carjacking four hours earlier.
“If an officer is shooting someone who is fleeing they run the risk of being charged themselves with an excessive use of force. And in this case deadly force,” said Kalfani Ture with the Center for Ethnographic Studies of Public Safety.
Ture is a former police officer and also a Resident Scholar. He called what he saw in the video an uninformed split-second decision.
“How do you use your firearm in seconds of exiting your patrol car without evaluating?" Ture said.
But former cop and national policing expert Tim Dimoff says seven to ten seconds is enough time for an officer to determine, evaluate, and react.
"If the officer truly thought he saw or did see a firearm on the subject or the subject reaching in and pulling out a firearm or what he thought to be a firearm then the officer is fully justified,” Dimoff said.
Dimoff said there is a movement throughout the United States to release body camera videos like this sooner.
“The bottom line: the public has the right to see what the officer saw and to more objectively make a determination,” Dimoff said.
Since 2022, Cleveland has required the release of body and dash cam videos within seven days in the use of deadly force cases.
Ture thinks it should apply to the county.
“The two deputy sheriffs were operating in the interest and at the will of the local police department,” Ture said.
It took four months to release the body camera.
After we kept pushing, the county says the Ronayne Administration will now consider changing the county’s policy on releasing video from deputy shootings.
County Councilman Martin J. Sweeney says transparency is imperative.
“Absolutely not only you but the general public needs to see it,” Sweeney said.
Sweeney says the council needs to figure out whether it’s an ordinance or a policy written by Sheriff Pretel.
"If you talk about good government, I think this is a slam dunk because why not think about it. It just makes it more difficult to deal with the situation that is very troubling,” Sweeney said.
In December, the county said neither deputy has any discipline. After the shooting, they requested stress leave.
The shooting is still under investigation by Cleveland police.
Today, the county said both are at work.
In a statement, the county said the Department is in the process of refining procedures and implementing standardized protocols for releasing information.
