CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) – Cleveland Police are still investigating an early August shooting in the city’s Collinwood neighborhood after a woman shot her landlord for allegedly attempting to break into the first floor apartment.
“My neighbor next door upstairs was high on drugs and he pounded on the door and in the end he kicked the door down and I shot,” the woman said during the call.
The emergency call center did not have to have noticed that the caller said she had fired her gun, because the call continued for three minutes without an ambulance being sent and the emergency services trying to find out the status of the person who had been shot.
The woman who fired the gun never mentions again that she shot someone and the situation is not resolved until the woman’s boyfriend comes home and hangs up the 911 call.
He tells the dispatcher that the man is not breathing.
“So he needs an ambulance?” Asks the dispatcher.
“He’s dead,” replies the man.
“And how did he die?” Asks the dispatcher.
“He kicked our door down and she shot him,” he replies.
At this point, the dispatcher makes it clear that she has never heard the woman say that she shot the man.
The case is still being investigated by the Cleveland Police.
Michael Benza is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law. He said Ohio has strong laws for the benefit of those protecting their homes.
“If you just take the basic facts, someone is trying to get into this house, she doesn’t know who it is, she’s in the house, she’s shooting him. That’s the classic castle doctrine, protect your home self-defense, ”said Benza.
But these cases, Benza added, are seldom very simple.
“Where it gets tricky is when you have additional facts that say she knows this person who comes into the house,” he said.
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