Staff photos / Ed Runyan Mahoning County Assistant Prosecutor Rob Andrews delivers closing arguments to the jury Wednesday in the felonious assault trial of Damian Cessna, 28, who was shot by a Boardman police officer in 2021 after Cessna allegedly charged at the officer with a knife.

YOUNGSTOWN — In closing arguments Wednesday, Mahoning County prosecutors leaned heavily on the testimony of a woman who saw Boardman police officer Evan Beil shoot bicyclist Damian Cessna early July 13, 2021, on South Avenue in Boardman.

The jury in the case deliberated for about an hour late Wednesday and will return this morning to resume in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

Assistant Prosecutor Rob Andrews said a female eyewitness was driving near the intersection of South Avenue and Mathews Road in Boardman when she saw a Boardman police cruiser and a man standing on the road in front of it.

She did not see Boardman police officer Evan Beil, and she did not see a knife in Cessna’s hand, but she saw Cessna “walk toward the police car in a very aggressive manner, like Jason,” the villain in the Friday the 13th movies, Andrews said.

“She heard a volley of shots, a pause, another volley of shots, at which time the defendant stumbled back and fell to the ground,” Andrews said.

The defense wants jurors to think Cessna was not guilty of felonious assault on the grounds that Beil fired prematurely at Cessna, Andrews said, adding that is not true.

But “that part doesn’t really even matter,” Andrews said, because Beil pulled a long knife out of its sheath and made Beil think his life was in danger. Beil did not know whether Cessna was a knife expert, and “police officers can’t take that chance,” he said.

Cessna, 28, is on trial for an incident that began when Beil made a 12:30 a.m. traffic stop of Cessna because Cessna was riding a bicycle at night with no lights on in the wrong lane of travel and carrying a baseball bat, prosecutors have said.

Beil only intended to advise Cessna that his night-time bike riding was dangerous, Andrews said. Cessna complied with putting down his bat. But after Cessna used profanities and would not toss away his sheathed knife, Beil called for backup, drew his weapon and told Cessna to get on the ground, Andrews said. Then Cessna “pulled the knife out, lets out some guttural groan and starts going at officer Beil,” Andrews said.

Beil was concerned that Cessna could disable him with two cuts on Beil’s arms or one to Beil’s neck, Andrews said. As Beil retreated, he fired the first five or six times, Andrews said. “It’s not doing anything. He’s not stopping him. For a brief fraction of a second, he stops firing, reassesses and fires five or six more shots,” Andrews said. Beil stopped firing when Cessna fell to the ground. Andrews said it is not known how many of the 11 shots hit Cessna.

EYEWITNESS

The female eyewitness saw the cruiser and Cessna and “saw there is some interaction going on,” Andrews said. “And then she sees him walking, meaning the defendant, towards the police car like Jason from Friday the 13th,” Andrews said.

The woman also said that, “based on the defendant’s actions, the defendant was shooting at the police officer,” Andrews said.

The woman thought the officer “shot back, hitting him,” Andrews said. “And she was scared because of the defendant’s actions. She drove away to do what she had to do. When she came back, there were police cars, so she stopped” and talked to them, Andrews said.

He noted that Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigations Special Agent Matthew Armstrong testified that he investigated the officer-involved shooting of Cessna and believed that the incident “went down the way Officer Beil said it did.”

DEFENSE

Defense attorney Mark Lavelle told jurors during his closing argument that the defense is “not looking for sympathy” for the gunshot wounds Cessna suffered. “We’re looking to explain the officer’s conduct as well.”

Lavelle said the “critical issue” in the case is that “the very second that officer Beil pulled out his weapon and pointed it at Damian Cessna, he says ‘Throw down your knife,’ and when he pulled it out of the sheath, the officer shot him,” Lavelle said.

Cessna moved toward Beil and “traveled about 2 1/2 feet. In the time he unsheathed his knife, raised it over his head, screamed and then charged at the officer, (Beil) discharged 11 shots. (Cessna) traveled 2 1/2 feet.”

Lavelle clarified that Beil fired 11 times but Cessna was hit “a number of times.” Lavelle said it is not true that Cessna made it close to the officer. “It’s absurd. It’s insane to suggest that he would have tried to travel 20 feet while this officer had his gun pointed at him,” Lavelle said.

PROSECUTION

Andrews, who got to speak twice, said Beil’s actions “were a reaction to save his life,” adding, “What the defendant did was a reaction to cause physical harm to officer Beil. So realistically it doesn’t matter when the shots were fired or how far apart they were.”

Andrews said Cessna had charged at least seven feet from where he stood at his bicycle toward Beil, then got hit with gunfire. Lavelle wants the jury to think that Biel fired at Cessna from 20 feet away as soon as Cessna pulled out the knife, but the female witness said Cessna “stumbled back and fell to the ground,” Andrews said.

WITNESS

Armstrong was the only witness on Wednesday, explaining that BCI’s role in an officer-involved shooting like this is to carry out a criminal investigation of the use of force by the officer. But the investigation covers “the entirety of that event,” though they do not focus on “tactics or policy violations.”

In this investigation, the Boardman Police Department handled the investigation into Cessna’s actions, though they could have asked for another agency to investigate that, he said. In a situation like this, “We generally work very closely with them.” He wrote a 64-page prosecutor summary that was turned over to the Mahoning County Prosecutor’s Office. Ohio BCI also sent a crime scene investigator to Boardman to handle that part of the investigation, he said.