Shooting at Lane and High
Jan. 4th, 2007 10:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skylark913A 23-year-old Columbus man wrote his family a suicide note before he took his father's car and an assault-style rifle early yesterday and tried to rob a Sawmill Road pharmacy, authorities say.
About 20 minutes later, Michael Hevezi killed himself when the car was stopped by Columbus police officers at Lane Avenue and N. High Street.
Four officers fired their weapons during the confrontation, but an autopsy determined that Hevezi died from shooting himself through the roof of his mouth, said Franklin County Coroner Brad Lewis.
"He was struck multiple times by police bullets, but those weren't lethal," Lewis said.
It was unclear whether officers fired first, or if their shots were prompted by Hevezi shooting his weapon, an AR-15 rifle taken from his father's home.
"The officers felt threatened," said Sgt. Kevin Corcoran, a Police Division spokesman.
The head of the local police union agreed.
"There was a confrontation with that weapon," said Officer Jim Gilbert, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Capital City Lodge No. 9. "The officers felt an immediate threat and had no other choice but to protect themselves."
Police refused yesterday to release the names of the officers involved.
Hevezi's father, Alexander Hevezi, called 911 at 1:24 a.m. to report that his son took his car, a 2004 Cadillac CTS, and left a note at the family's Littleleaf Lane home on the Northwest Side.
Mr. Hevezi read to the 911 dispatcher from the note, which concluded, "I'll never do what I need to be successful in life. I'm taking the easy way out."
Within three minutes of that call, the 911 center received a hushed call from a pharmacist reporting a robbery in progress at the CVS Pharmacy at Sawmill and Hard roads, less than
2 miles from the Hevezi home.
The pharmacist said a man, who did not show a weapon, passed him a note demanding that he place one bottle each of Adderall and OxyContin on the counter "within 10 seconds."
OxyContin is a narcotic painkiller; Adderall is a stimulant used for attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder and sometimes depression.
The pharmacist told the man he didn't have the drugs, then fled to a stockroom to call police. The man was gone by the time police arrived, but dispatchers aired a description of the car, which matched Hevezi's father's car.
Gilbert said officers in the University District began looking for the car because there's another all-night CVS at Lane Avenue and N. High Street. Officers spotted the vehicle about 1:50 a.m.
"It was good police work," Gilbert said.
Police wouldn't give further information about what happened after that, except to say that Hevezi died while still in the car, which had stopped at the intersection of Lane and High. Hevezi had been traveling east on Lane.
Hevezi's father declined to comment when contacted yesterday.
In his 911 call, Hevezi said his son left the suicide note and took the car after spending the evening watching a football game with friends at a Sawmill Road tavern.
Asked by the dispatcher if his son was upset, he answered, "No, not earlier, but he got involved with some drugs before and some bad guys."
Hevezi had no criminal record in Franklin County, but had previous encounters with officers, according to Police Division reports.
In June, his father contacted police after Hevezi took his car and stole checks from his checkbooks. The son told police "he had to take drastic measures in order to pay a $275 drug debt."
In July, he told officers he was carjacked by two men from the same Sawmill CVS. He said he was released on Cleveland Avenue after being forced to return home and get his driver's license and the title to the vehicle.
The store where the robbery attempt occurred is one of a handful of CVS pharmacies open 24 hours.
It isn't clear whether criminals are attracted to stores with overnight hours, but most of the 4,000 robberies in 2006 occurred between 3 p.m. and 7 a.m., said Sgt. Shaun Laird of the robbery squad.
Yesterday's shooting was the first involving Columbus police in the new year. Officers were involved in 14 shootings in 2006, six of which were fatal.
As in all police-involved shootings, the officers will be required to meet with a psychologist before being cleared to return to work. A team of homicide detectives will conduct an investigation to determine whether the officers' actions were within division policy.
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