Columbus police release redacted videos of July I-70 pursuit, which stop short of shootout

Mark Ferenchik, Columbus Dispatch
Updated ·4 min read
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A still image taken from a dashcam video released Tuesday by Columbus police shows one of three suspects standing outside a stolen Porsche SUV in the middle of Interstate 70 east near West Mound Street during a July 6 police chase following an armed bank robbery. Two gunshots are heard as the two officers inside get out of the vehicle, but the redacted video released by police ends there without showing the shootout.

Columbus police on Tuesday released four redacted versions of body camera and dashcam videos from the July 6 police chase that ended in a shootout on Interstate 70 with one suspect dead and an officer critically injured.

But none of the videos show the actual shooting in the middle of I-70 east, near Mound Street, in South Franklinton. One video stops just after two shots are heard and one of the three suspects is seen leaving the Porsche Cayenne SUV that police alleged was stolen in Whitehall and used in an armed bank robbery on the city's Far West Side.

The Dispatch requested the videos after the shooting. According to Columbus police letters released Tuesday afternoon with the videos, all video of the shootout was redacted under Ohio law because there was "grievous bodily harm, including to a first responder; not effected by a peace officer and without the proper consent of the injured; and an act of severe violence against a person, including a first responder, that results in serious physical harm to the person; and without the proper consent of the injured."

A second letter also lists a victims' rights section under Ohio law which states the release of records, documents and information is prohibited. Columbus police have claimed that officers involved in shootings are victims of crime under Marsy's Law and therefore their names may be be withheld.

The first two videos show body camera and dashcam footage from two officers who were traveling east on West Broad Street near Interstate 70. The officers head up the ramp to I-70 eastbound and wait for the SUV as it races along I-70 eastbound.

Police vehicles on Interstate 70 east near Mound Street in Columbus surround a stolen Porsche Cayenne SUV, just beneath the I-71 South sign, on Thursday, July 6, 2023, as officers responded to a shootout on the highway that left one of three suspects in an armed bank robbery dead and a Columbus police officer critically wounded.
Police vehicles on Interstate 70 east near Mound Street in Columbus surround a stolen Porsche Cayenne SUV, just beneath the I-71 South sign, on Thursday, July 6, 2023, as officers responded to a shootout on the highway that left one of three suspects in an armed bank robbery dead and a Columbus police officer critically wounded.

"It just blew by me on Wilson," can be heard on the radio, an officer to the west referring to the fleeing Porsche.

The Columbus police cruiser waiting on the West Broad Street ramp joins the chase as the Porsche speeds by, the video shows. It catches up with the Porsche after the SUV already stopped at an angle in the middle of two lanes of I-70 near Mound Street.

Two shots are heard; then a male suspect is seen stepping from the passenger's side of the SUV toward the back rear of the vehicle. The video ends.

A fourth video, more than eight minutes long, is from the dashcam of a Columbus police cruiser chasing the Porsche SUV beginning on Hilliard-Rome Road near the Kroger store on the Far West Side, with the high-speed chase heading east on Roberts Road, south on Intestate 270 and east on I-70, with the cruiser and others ahead of it weaving in and out of freeway traffic. The video stops before it reaches the Porsche.

Abdisamad Ismail, 19, died in the shootout with law enforcement on I-70. A Columbus police officer was critically wounded by a gunshot that entered through a leg and was hospitalized for 20 days. That officer, who has not been named by police citing Marsy's Law, was released July 26 to a long-term rehabilitation center.

Eight officers were involved in the shootout, police said, which the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation is investigating.

A statement from Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein's office released Tuesday also cites Marsy's Law, which protects the identities of crime victims, as to why the videos were redacted.

"The video released in the incident in question is footage captured prior to the point at which the officers become victims of a crime, i.e. when the shots were fired at officers. In accordance with the rights afforded to crime victims under Marsy's Law, identifying information has been removed from the recordings," the statement said.

Ismail and two others — Aden Abdullahi Jama, 20, of Reynoldsburg, and Faisal Mohamed Darod, 23, of Columbus — are accused of leading police on the chase that led to the shootout following a reported armed robbery at Fifth Third Bank Branch, 2455 Hilliard Rome Road, on the Far West Side. Whitehall police, who used tracking information from the stolen SUV, tried to stop the suspects at the bank, but they sped off, triggering the chase.

Jama and Darod pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court in Columbus. The two are charged with aiding and abetting a bank robbery and the use and carrying of a firearm during a crime of violence. Each faces up to life in prison, if convicted.

The three are accused of stealing the Porsche SUV at gunpoint around 2:15 p.m. July 6 from the Byers Imports car lot, 401 N. Hamilton Road, Whitehall. Around 4 p.m. police say the three took about $90,000 during the Fifth Third Bank branch robbery.

mferench@dispatch.com

@MarkFerenchik

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus police release videos of I-70 pursuit that don't show shootout