Staff photo / Ed Runyan Damian J. Cessna, 27, at right, listens to his attorney, Mark Lavelle, during a hearing Tuesday morning before jury selection in Cessna’s felonious assault trial in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. Opening statements and first witnesses will take place today.

YOUNGSTOWN — Opening statements will be given this morning in the felonious assault trial of Damian J. Cessna, 27, who was shot multiple times by a Boardman police officer 1 a.m. July 13, 2021, after the officer said Cessna held a knife and came toward the officer.

A jury was seated Tuesday in the courtroom of Judge Maureen Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. The confrontation took place on South Avenue near Matthews Road in Boardman.

Before 40 prospective jurors entered the courtroom for jury selection, Cessna rejected a plea offer. If convicted at trial, he could get about nine years in prison.

Boardman police said the shooting occurred after officer Evan Beil spotted Cessna on a bicycle and stopped him for suspicious activity, including riding on the wrong side of the road at night.

When the officer approached, Cessna held a knife in his hand and came toward the officer, a police report states. Cessna also had a baseball bat. Beil gave repeated commands to drop the knife before he discharged his weapon, Boardman police said.

Police administered first aid to Cessna at the scene until ambulance personnel took him to the hospital.

Boardman Police Chief Todd Werth said in August 2021 that a departmental internal affairs investigation determined that Beil’s actions were “reasonable and appropriate based upon the circumstances he faced during his interaction with Mr. Cessna.” Beil has been with the department since November 2014.

In December 2021, Judge Sweeney ruled Cessna to be competent to stand trial after a forensic evaluation was carried out.

At about the same time, then-Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul Gains said his office reviewed a criminal investigation carried out by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and concluded that the prosecutor’s office would not be taking any further action.

“The officer was cleared of any wrongdoing. That was our conclusion,” Gains said.

Steve Irwin, a BCI spokesman, said the BCI investigation was turned over to Gains Oct. 1, 2021. In such cases, BCI leaves the decisions on whether to present the case to a grand jury up to the local prosecutor. BCI is a part of the Ohio Attorney General’s Office.