Donna Iacoboni and John F. Hagan, The Cleveland Plain Dealer
Just 11 minutes passed from the time Cleveland police dispatchers got a call about a domestic disturbance on West 98th Street and the suspect’s arrest Tuesday.
But during that brief span, police say, two officers and the suspect exchanged a barrage of gunfire on the streets around West 98th and Madi son Avenue. When the gun fire stopped, an officer had been struck in the hip and the sus pect had been shot in the groin.
First District Patrolman Mickey Mondock, a 14-year veteran, was in good condition at MetroHealth Medical Center last night. The suspect, Kyle Banks, 25, of Cleveland, was in fair condition.
Police Chief Edward Lohn praised Mondock and his partner, seven-year veteran Patrolman Michael Farley, for using restraint. Lohn said Banks fired a gun in the air when officers first approached him. Later, as they chased him on foot and in their car, he pointed his gun at the officers and they still held their fire, the chief said.
Only after the suspect fired - one bullet penetrated the police cruiser’s door and hit Mondock - did both officers shoot back, wounding the shooter before they captured him four blocks from where the chase began, Lohn said. Police arrested Banks at 10:34 a.m. after he ran to a relative’s house on Landon Avenue, and the relative called police.
Police recovered a .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol and found shell casings in the streets.
Lohn was unable to say how many shots were fired by the officers and the suspect.
Witnesses reported hearing at least a dozen.
The officers were placed on paid leave while the incident is investigated, a routine procedure.
Police gave this account of the incident, which began at 2033 West 98th St.
Mondock and Farley saw Banks leaving the address of the domestic-disturbance call, and decided he fit the description of a man the caller complained about. When they ordered him to stop, he turned toward them, fired a shot in the air and ran.
With Farley on foot and Mondock in the cruiser, they chased him. At one point, the suspect pointed his gun at the officers. He pretended to drop his gun, then bolted again. When the officers caught up with him at West 96th Street, the suspect fired several times, and the police shot back before the suspect ran to the home where he was arrested.
Witness Mike Bennett said he was buffing a limousine at a body shop at Madison Avenue and West 93rd Street when he saw a heavy-set officer grappling with a young black man near the “no outlet” sign on West 93rd.
“The kid broke loose and ran west on Madison,” Bennett said. “The cop talked into the walkie-talkie on his shoulder and jumped back into his car, backed onto Madison, cut off another car and sped after the kid.”
Then, Bennett said, he heard two distinct shots, followed by many different-sounding shots - “too many to count.”
Another witness, Ben Price, was stacking plywood flooring at Cleveland Lumber, which abuts West 98th Street.
He said he saw the suspect running north on West 98th with his arm stretched out behind him, shooting at the officers as he ran.
“The cop opened his door and returned fire. I saw him reach for his leg when he was standing by the Landon House apartments,” Price said.
Chris Bush, 14, working a summer job at the lumber yard, said he felt one of the bullets fly past his head.
Landon House manager Douglas Barrett heard a half-dozen shots before Mondock’s gun appeared to jam.
“He beat his gun twice on our sign,” Barrett said. (Police said they had no reports of guns jamming and said the officer may have been reloading.)
There were two bullet holes on the driver’s side of Mondock’s police car, 112: one through the door just below the door handle, the other in the front.
Banks was released from prison in January after serving eight months for drug trafficking, drug possession and possession of criminal tools. He also has been imprisoned previously on drug charges and possessing a weapon, according to Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction records.
The landlord at 2033 W. 98th St., Joseph McGarvey, said the upstairs tenant in apartment 3 invited Banks’ estranged wife and her two children, 5 and 3, to live there less than a year ago.
McGarvey said Banks is the father of the 5-year-old and that the couple argued about the child. “I talked to Miss Banks shortly after it happened. She was near tears and said she wished her children didn’t have to see that.”
The gunfire erupted in a neighborhood weary of hearing it. Said Herman Toney, standing next to the for-sale sign in front of his Madison Avenue home: “You hear it so much you don’t even look out of the window anymore.”