CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) – Records show the man charged with shooting and killing Cleveland Police Officer Jamison Ritter on the Fourth of July has a criminal history and was once ordered by a judge to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.
According to a Cleveland Police report, on December 4, 2023, Delonete Hardy, 24, was arrested for allegedly burglarizing a residence at 3705 Central Avenue on the city’s east side. According to the report, the incident began when officers responded to a call of suspicious activity after Hardy was observed climbing through a window of the residence. When police arrived, they instructed Hardy to leave the home. When Hardy refused, officers reportedly gained entry through a broken window and attempted to handcuff him.
Officers said Hardy resisted arrest and fled to the second floor. Four officers were ultimately needed to detain him, according to the report. Officers said they found Hardy’s Nike gym bag in one of the second-floor bedrooms. The bag contained two knives, two swords, an Ohio identification card, $147 in cash, multiple credit and debit cards, and a hockey mask. Hardy was subsequently charged with burglary and resisting arrest, both misdemeanors.
A week later, he was released on bail, according to court records. But a judge ordered Hardy to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. The case was dismissed in April of this year. Hardy was deemed incompetent and could not be restored in time to stand trial, according to court records.
Then, in the early morning hours of June 29, Garfield Heights police were called to the Reindeer Street home of Hardy’s grandmother, Beatrice Porter, who was found by her husband lying in a pool of blood and barely alive. Records show she had been shot in the head. Hardy had been seen leaving her home on his bicycle earlier that morning.
Garfield Heights police issued a warrant for Hardy’s arrest later that day on a felonious assault charge. Porter died in hospital a few days later.
Then on July 4, a man claiming to be Hardy’s uncle called Cleveland police to report his nephew had been seen at a home in the 1500 block of East 80th Street in Cleveland. He warned officers that Hardy had a gun and was wanted in the shooting death of his grandmother.
Dispatchers reportedly determined that Hardy was “armed and dangerous,” had “violent tendencies” and was “known to suffer from schizophrenia.”
But when Officer Ritter responded to that call, no one could have predicted what would happen.
Hardy has been charged with murder in the shooting of Ritter, with a preliminary hearing scheduled for July 17 in Cleveland Municipal Court.
Copyright 2024 WOIO. All rights reserved.
