Man admits hitting, killing Cleveland FF at interstate crash scene

By Cory Shaffer
cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The man accused of hitting and killing Johnny Tetrick, a Cleveland firefighter, and fleeing the scene last November admits he was behind the wheel at the time.

But whether Leander Bissell becomes a convicted murderer and receives a life sentence hinges upon whether prosecutors prove at his trial that began Monday that he knew that the actions he took on Interstate 90 on Nov. 19 would logically result in him hurting someone.

Bissell, 41, of Cleveland, is charged with murder, the result of him committing felonious assault. In order for Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Timothy McCormick to find him guilty of murder, the judge must first find him guilty of the felonious assault.

Bissell is also charged with involuntary manslaughter, aggravated vehicular homicide, fleeing the scene of an accident and other charges that do not carry life sentences.

Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Carl Mazzone said in opening statements that video from the scene shows that multiple police cruisers had the left two lanes of I-90 East blocked off before the accident. The videos also show traffic backing up as everyone funneled into the two open lanes.

“Everybody got the picture of what was going on except for one person,” Mazzone said.

Mazzone told McCormick that the evidence at trial will show that “the result of the defendant’s decision making, which was the death of Firefighter Johnny Tetrick, was within the natural and logical scope of the risk he created when he went around three different police cars, never braked and hit firefighter Tetrick.”

Assistant Cuyahoga County Public Defender Tim Huber accused the prosecutor’s office of mischaracterizing the facts of the accident to Tetrick’s family and the public, and he said that evidence will show prosecutors charging Bissell with murder was a “extreme over-indictment.”

Huber asked McCormick to see “beyond the pressure of the reeling firefighter community” to render his verdict. Multiple members of the fire department sat behind Tetrick’s widow and three adult daughters in the courtroom during the proceedings.

Bissell was confused when he approached the accident scene because police did not adequately close the highway, Huber said. Body camera videos from police officers at the scene will show that more than 100 other cars had used the closed lanes after passing the initial police car closing the first lane, Huber said.

Huber asked McCormick to acquit Bissell of all charges except one — leaving the scene of an accident. Huber admitted Bissell fled and that there was “no defending” it.

“While that act appears to be cold and callous, it was a horrible decision, and just a horrible decision,” Huber said. “It does not impute guilt on him for the other counts, and (it) certainly does not make him a murderer.”

Bissell elected to try his case to McCormick rather than a jury. The case is set to continue through this week.

Tetrick, a 27-year department veteran, and three other firefighters at Engine 22 got a call about 8:15 p.m. Nov. 19 to respond to a crash on I-90 East near the Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard exit. The accident was right on the border of Cleveland and Bratenahl, so officers from both police departments responded.

Tetrick’s team arrived in a ladder truck about seven minutes later and noted how far out police had closed off the scene, Lt. Jeffrey Vollmer, who was in the truck driven by Tetrick, testified.

After the firefighters checked on the sedan that had flipped onto its roof in the left-hand lane and several people who had pulled over onto the right shoulder, they began to clear accident debris.

A truck driver on his way to Buffalo who was stopped in his semitractor-trailer at the front of the scene began recording video on his cellphone to document why he was stopped and send the video to his company. The video, which prosecutors played in court Monday, showed Tetrick peeking around the semi into traffic after a car passed by, then jogging into the second lane from the left and bending over to pick up a piece of the flipped car.

Just then, Bissell’s white Chevy Malibu whizzed by the semi and struck Tetrick from behind as he was bending over, and sent his body flying across the highway and onto the right shoulder.

The truck driver, who testified via a Spanish language interpreter, could be heard on the video saying, “motherf----r, they killed the guy.”

Mazzone said the car was traveling at least 45 mph when it struck Tetrick. The force of the impact sent debris from the Malibu’s front end flying. Investigators later used that debris to identify the make of car and ultimately track down and arrest Bissell at his apartment several hours later.

Vollmer, who at one point choked up on the stand, said that he noticed lights speeding toward the scene but did not have enough time to warn Tetrick after he realized they were headlights.

Huber pointed out in opening statements that there were no police cars behind the truck that was parked on the right shoulder, so Bissell had no reason to expect that someone may have tried to cross from that side of the highway. He also sought to seize on the Cleveland fire department’s policy that changed less than two months after the accident. It requires that firefighters who are first on the scene use their truck to block traffic even if police vehicles are already on scene doing so. The night Tetrick was killed, the crew parked behind the rollover truck.

Vollmer said that the firefighters were following their policy at the time, and they were comfortable with the multiple police vehicles that were funneling traffic into the right hand lanes.

“We have limited resources. We can’t duplicate things that have already been established,” Vollmer said.

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