Grand jury investigates case of man accused of killing CLE officer

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The case against the man accused of killing Cleveland police Officer Jamieson Ritter will go before a grand jury, the Cuyahoga County District Attorney’s Office confirmed to 3News on Tuesday. At the same time, we’re learning new details about another incident in which De’Lawnte Hardy was allegedly involved.

Hardy, 24, already faces aggravated murder charges in Cleveland Municipal Court in connection with Ritter’s death and is held on $5 million bail, but prosecutors are also investigating the July 4 shooting that prompted the Cleveland police response.

Garfield Heights police said they received a 911 call from a home on Reindeer Avenue at 1:12 a.m. on June 29. The caller said he came home to find his garage open, the back door unlocked and his wife lying in her blood.

“The emergency is that my wife was on the floor when I got home and there was blood everywhere and I don’t know what’s going on,” he told the dispatcher in the 911 call to WKYC.

The dispatcher immediately asked, “Is she breathing? Is she breathing?”

“I don’t know,” he replied.

“You have to come down and tell me if she’s breathing!” the dispatcher replied in a panic.

Beatrice Porter, 63, was breathing but unresponsive. Her husband said he had been away all day but their grandson Hardy had been home earlier in the day.

“Her grandson was here and is no longer here, so I don’t know,” Porter told authorities. “I looked in the garage and what was missing was my bike.”

“It was a shock, but when we found out, I just thought, ‘Oh wow,'” neighbor Gilbert Evans said in an interview Tuesday.

Evans says he only saw Hardy outside the house a few times. The last time was on June 28, hours before Hardy’s grandmother was found shot to death.

“I work lunch, so I saw him jogging as I was leaving the house, and then a gray SUV came,” Evans recalled. “He wasn’t quite driving – they weren’t quite driving in the back – and he just got in the car and looked funny. When I saw it, it was weird because I’ve never seen a young man run away from here or come out of this house.”

Beatrice went to the hospital, but five days passed before Cleveland police received a call that Hardy — now wanted for aggravated assault — was in the 1500 block of East 80th Street in the Hough neighborhood. Officers, including Jamieson Ritter, were attempting to arrest Hardy when he attempted to escape on a bicycle and then fired several shots, according to police. Ritter was struck and killed.

Authorities later announced that Hardy’s grandmother, Beatrice, had also died in the hospital the same day. The district attorney’s office confirmed to 3News that it had both cases and was considering charges.

Hardy is currently being held in the Cuyahoga County Jail on $5 million bail.