By Paul Kiska
Newsnet 5
CLEVELAND — Cleveland police release video of emotional interviews with officers who first responded to Amanda Berry’s call for help from Seymour Avenue.
The interviews were conducted last weekend by Detective Jennifer Ciaccia with the Cleveland Police Department’s Public Information Department.
The first person to speak is Officer Anthony Espada.
His voice cracking, his eyes filling with tears, Espada recounts the amazing moment of pulling up to the scene on Seymour Avenue. He and his partner saw a large crowd and a woman raising her hand holding a child. The woman was Amanda Berry.
“It was overwhelming. We figured he (Castro) might probably still be in the house. She (Amanda) said Gina DeJesus and another woman (Michelle Knight) are in the house. It was like another bombshell went off with overwhelming force just hit me,” Espada said.
Espada went upstairs in the house and saw a woman come into the hallway “It was Michelle. She came charging at me. She jumped onto me. She yelled, ‘You saved us, you saved us,’ and I’m holding onto her so tight,” Espada said.
Espada then talked about seeing another woman walk out of the room. He knew who it was right away.
“I asked her, ‘What’s your name?’ She said, ‘Georgina DeJesus.’ It was overwhelming. It took everything to hold myself together,” Espada said with emotion filling his voice.
Then during the most emotion-filled part of the police interview Espada’s voice cracks when he talks about broadcasting over police radio “We found them. We found them,” Espada said.
Cleveland Police officers Barbara Johnson who called the women all heroes and officer Michael Tracy also shared their stories about the moment they helped rescued everyone from the house.
The interviews are emotional and detailed about how the rescue happened.
Reprinted with permission from Newsnet 5