Police charge suspect in stabbing

Columbus police charged the man accused of stabbing his female roommate Thursday afternoon near the Ohio State University campus.

Ezra Isa Malik Cason, 22, is charged with felonious assault and harassment with bodily fluid.

Cason’s roommate, 19-year-old Melanie Avarez Chica, fled from their residence in the 2300 block of Neil Avenue Thursday afternoon. She was covered in blood and had a significant wound to her neck.

She told a bystander that Cason had “gone crazy.” When Officer Joseph Abdalla arrived, he helped apply pressure to Chica’s neck until medics arrived.

Officers entered the house as Cason ran out the back door. He was confronted by Columbus police Officer Frank Miller, a 17-year-veteran, who fired one shot at him and missed.

It’s unclear if Cason was armed at the time. Cason continued to run across a field about 200 yards away, where he was apprehended. Police found two bloody knives outside the house.

This is not Miller’s first shooting, according to Dispatch archives.

Miller, 47, was involved in a shooting on the North Side seven years ago when he fatally shot an armed man in a dark apartment stairwell at Abbey Lane Apartments on Goldengate Square West.

Miller was among officers who responded to a report of gunshots and a man arguing with a woman. When officers confronted 27-year-old Nyl R. O’Day, he pointed a gun toward them, police said. Miller fired, killing O’Day. Following an internal investigation, the officer was found to have acted within the division’s policy.

On Thursday when Cason was taken into custody, he had lacerations on his arms. Police say he spit on Abdalla as he was being taken into custody.

Both Cason and Chica are in stable condition at Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center.