Killing of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams

On November 29, 2012, Timothy Russell, 43, was driving a 1979 Chevrolet Malibu with Malissa Williams, 30, in the passenger seat through downtown Cleveland, Ohio. A plainclothes officer had earlier stopped the car for a turn-signal violation in an area known for drug activity; the vehicle was not searched and the pair were allowed to leave. Shortly afterward, Russell sped past two officers who believed they heard gunshots. No firearm was ever found in the car, and the noise was later attributed to the vehicle backfiring. This triggered a chase involving more than 60 police vehicles and 60-plus officers from Cleveland, East Cleveland, Bratenahl, the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Department, the Ohio State Highway Patrol, and the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority, reaching speeds up to 100 mph over roughly 22 miles.

The chase ended when Russell drove into the parking lot of Heritage Middle School in East Cleveland. Officers stated they believed they saw a firearm in the car and thought Russell intended to run them over. Thirteen officers opened fire, discharging 137 rounds into the vehicle. Russell was struck 23 times and Williams 24 times; both died at the scene. No weapons were recovered from the car.

In May 2014, Officer Michael Brelo, a former Marine and Iraq War veteran who had joined the Cleveland Police Department in 2007, was indicted on two counts of voluntary manslaughter — the only one of the thirteen officers who fired to face criminal charges. Prosecutors alleged Brelo continued firing after the other officers stopped, at one point standing on the car's hood and firing roughly fifteen rounds down through the windshield. On May 23, 2015, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge John P. O'Donnell found Brelo not guilty of voluntary manslaughter and a lesser felonious-assault charge, concluding Brelo's use of deadly force was legally justified given that other officers had also fired lethal shots. The acquittal was followed by unrest in downtown Cleveland, with at least 71–74 people arrested on charges including felonious assault, rioting, and failure to disperse.

Five police supervisors were separately charged with misdemeanor dereliction of duty. Following years of procedural delays and jurisdictional disputes between county and East Cleveland prosecutors, charges against three supervisors were dismissed in January 2019, and a fourth, Sgt. Patricia Coleman, was found not guilty in July 2019 after a three-day trial. The U.S. Department of Justice opened a federal investigation into the deaths in May 2015, reviewing evidence and testimony from Brelo's trial; that investigation closed in January 2017 without further action reported.

In January 2016, six Cleveland officers, including Brelo, were fired over their involvement in the chase; an arbitrator's ruling led to the reinstatement of five of the six in October 2017. Brelo was the only officer to permanently lose his job. The families of Russell and Williams sued the city of Cleveland for wrongful death and received a $3 million settlement, split evenly, in November 2014. The case became one referenced within the Black Lives Matter movement's broader protests over police killings of unarmed African Americans, and was later the subject of the 2021 Netflix documentary "137 Shots."