Police ID officer in traffic stop shooting
Officials say he also shot teenage male in August
A Columbus police officer who shot a man in the back Sunday following a traffic stop also shot a teenage male during a traffic stop in August, police revealed Monday.
Officer Joshua Ohlinger, a member of the city Division of Police for five years, has been identified by police officials as the officer who shot 66-year-old Michael L. Cleveland in the back. Columbus
police Chief Elaine Bryant said during a press conference Monday that Ohlinger’s status at the division is pending a psychiatric evaluation.
Ohlinger was previously placed on leave for nearly three months after he shot a teenager with a gun during a traffic stop in August.
“I’m concerned for his well-being and I’m concerned for the community,” Bryant said in response to questions about whether she was concerned that Ohlinger has shot two people in less than six months.
Body camera footage shows a brief vehicle chase following a traffic stop around 3:05 p.m. Sunday in the 1000 block of Wilson Avenue on the South
Side. Bryant said it was not clear what led to the traffic stop because Columbus police cannot interview Ohlinger since the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation is investigating the shooting.
Bryant said Cleveland did not have any outstanding warrants for his arrest, although he had an expired license.
Cleveland eventually pulls his black pickup truck over in an alley behind some residences, exits the vehicle and flees. Ohlinger chases Cleveland, initially pulling out his stun gun as he chases Cleveland from behind a rear courtyard off of Wilson in between two residential buildings.
In the bodycam video, Cleveland can be seen running as Ohlinger orders him to stop and put his hands up. Cleveland appears to throw a firearm aside as Ohlinger fires his weapon at Cleveland’s back six times while Cleveland continues to flee.
Cleveland falls to the ground and Ohlinger then holds a position at the end of the alley while he continues to order Cleveland to show him his hands and asks where the weapon is. Cleveland eventually responds that he threw the gun he had. (That gun was later recovered.)
Body camera footage shows Cleveland was treated by officers on scene before he was taken to a hospital in critical condition, which was upgraded to stable.
Multiple officers were on scene, but Ohlinger was the only one who fired at Cleveland.
Columbus police have charged Cleveland, whom court records indicate has had a lengthy criminal history — including felony convictions involving drug possession and receiving stolen property in the 1990s — with being a felon illegally in possession of a firearm.
Same officer shot teen in August
Previously, on Aug. 27, police say Ohlinger wounded a 17-year-old male during a shooting on the city’s Near East Side. The shooting occurred following a traffic stop around 3:30 p.m. in the area of East Main Street and Seymour Avenue.
Columbus police said the teen was one of two males who got out of the back of the stopped vehicle with firearms, leading Ohlinger to fire at least one shot that struck the teen. The teen was rushed to Ohiohealth Grant Medical Center in stable condition.
Ohlinger was taken off street duty for 89 days following that shooting and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation was called to investigate, Bryant said Monday. That shooting is still under investigation, she said.
Bryant said in the past, some officers have returned from critical incidents just days afterwards, a policy she said she has tried to change.
“Based on what we knew (in 2022), we thought 89 days was a good amount of time (to remove Ohlinger from the streets). Sometimes these investigations take two to three years,” Bryant said.
Sunday shooting happened near church’s street parade
During the pursuit that preceded Sunday’s shooting on the South Side, footage from the dashboard of the cruiser shows Columbus police officers pass a nearby march reportedly held by Ministries 4 Movement and Family Missionary Baptist Church, in which people are walking along the sidewalk banging on drums and calling for an end to violence in the city.
Later, during the shooting, a handful of people can be seen in bodycam video across the street in the direction Ohlinger was shooting toward Cleveland. The people in the background scatter at the gunfire.
Bryant said she “cringed” when she saw the march in the footage and said that police were grateful nobody else was injured in the police shooting.
“Sometimes we don’t have control over where, when and how incidents occur,” Bryant said.
David Foster, 47, who lives on Wilson Avenue, said Sunday that he initially thought the gunfire was drums from the parade.
“I’m sad, I’m scared — I’m mad,” Foster said of the police shooting’s proximity to a parade of what he said was mostly children.
Dispatch reporter Jordan Laird contributed to this report. @Colebehr_report cbehrens@dispatch.com