It could take months before investigators complete their report on whether Hudson Police Officer Ryan Doran was justified when he shot and killed an unarmed man fleeing from a car crash last month.
An Ohio Attorney General spokeswoman said the next step in the case is to complete an autopsy report, which would include a toxicology report that will determine whether 26-year-old Saif Alameri was intoxicated when he fled the scene of a car crash on Dec. 4.
“At this point, [the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and Identification] is backed up,” she said, “so these reports typically take two or three months.”
Once the report is complete, BCI authorities might need to follow up on parts of the investigation before handing the case over to a special prosecutor. There’s no estimation of how long that could take, the spokeswoman said.
The special prosecutor will decide whether Doran followed the police department’s deadly force policy, which dictates officers may fire their guns at suspects only when suspects pose a threat of serious harm to the public.
Alameri was fleeing from police after causing a car crash on the Ohio Turnpike. He flipped his car and fled to some woods bordering the turnpike. The other motorist in the crash was not hurt.
Doran caught up with Alameri, who was unarmed, in the woods. Their encounter was recorded by the dashboard camera of Doran’s cruiser, which captured audio but not video because the two were out of view of the camera.
Doran shouted at Alameri to stop or he’d shoot, followed by the sound of shuffling that police describe as a struggle. Then Doran fired six shots, hitting Alameri five times — including once in the head and once in the face. Halfway through the shots, the audio captured the sound of a man groaning in pain.
Alameri, who was a Case Western Reserve University law student, hailed from the United Arab Emirates. He had been in the U.S. less than a year when he died.
Nick Glunt can be reached at 330-996-3565 or nglunt@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @NickGluntABJ and on Facebook @JournoNickGlunt .