CLEVELAND, Ohio – A judge ruled Monday that a man accused of killing a Cleveland police officer is incompetent to stand trial.
Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Ashley Kilbane ordered that De’Lawnte Hardy be sent to Twin Valley Behavioral Health in Columbus for treatment. Kilbane found that he cannot help his attorneys in his defense, but she said she believes that he can with treatment.
Hardy, 25, of Cleveland, is accused of killing Jamieson Ritter as the Cleveland officer attempted to serve a warrant July 4. Days earlier, Hardy shot his grandmother in the face. She later died.
He has been indicted on aggravated murder charges, and he is being held on a $10 million bond.
Kilbane based the decision on Hardy’s competency on two reports by mental health experts. She ordered him “to cooperate with all prescribed medications, including long-acting injectable anti-psychotic medication.”
Hardy is accused of killing officer Ritter, 27, as police sought to arrest Hardy on a warrant in Cleveland’s Hough neighborhood. After a standoff at a home on East 80th Place, Hardy tried to flee on a bicycle and fired four shots at officers as they tried to arrest him, striking Ritter once, authorities said.
The warrant stemmed from a June 28 incident in Garfield Heights, where Hardy stole the gun of his 63-year-old grandmother, Beatrice Porter, and shot her in the head, authorities said.
“There are no circumstances under which, if this defendant is released, the public is safe,” Kevin Filiatraut, an assistant county prosecutor, said during a hearing after the shooting.
Ritter was a four-year veteran of the force. The Cleveland Police Foundation named Ritter and his partner, Brittany Vajusi, Officers of the Month in June after they gave emergency aid to two gunshot victims and rescued a man who had jumped into the Cuyahoga River earlier this year.
Kilbane’s decision came the same day as Common Pleas Judge John Russo’s ruling that Bionca Ellis was incompetent to stand trial on charges of killing a 3-year-old in a North Olmsted parking lot.
