🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.
A man was asleep on his couch in Cleveland Heights, Ohio when a vehicle being pursued by police crashed into his home early Friday morning, police said.
Around midnight, police said that they attempted to stop a sedan without license plates, and began pursuing the vehicle after it failed to yield, according to a report from the Cleveland Heights Police Department describing the incident that was provided to Newsweek.
Police began pursuing the vehicle. During the chase, at one point the car slowed down and a man got out of the car from the front passenger side of the vehicle and ran into a house. Eventually, the driver began to "pull away from units with excessive speed," police wrote in the report.
"Due to the excessive speed and reckless operation of the driver, at this time, I was determining that the pursuit needed to be terminated for safety reasons," an officer wrote in the report.
"While reaching for my cruiser and radio to advise dispatch of termination, the blue sedan crashed into the residence of 344 Fairmount Blvd.," the officer added.
Police said that the homeowner, John Gall, was at home during the crash, but in a different room, and was not injured. In an interview with Ohio news station WKBN, Gall said he was 10 to 15 feet away from the car when it crashed through his home. He was asleep at the time of the incident.
"I stuck my head out the broken front window and said, 'Please don't shoot me, I am the homeowner,'" Gall told the news station.
"It's a disaster," Gall said. "I can't go in there. It's unstable. They don't want me back in the house, um, I don't know what to do next," he added.
Gall lives at the end of a dead-end, and his neighbors told WKBN that this wasn't the first time the home has been damaged from a car going off the road.
"As soon as I heard it hit, I knew that one of the two houses had been hit by a car. I know the sound well by now," neighbor Todd Freeman said.
"This house has been hit repeatedly," he added.
On Friday morning, Gall said he was waiting on his insurance company to "to show up and give me some clues as to how to proceed with this. I'm hoping it doesn't snow tonight."
After the crash, the driver, Davonte Allison, was placed under arrest police said.
He received a series of citations, and police also said they sent a "complaint for felony fleeing against Allison" to the courts.
About the writer
Xander Landen is a Newsweek weekend reporter. His focus is often U.S. politics, but he frequently covers other issues including ... Read more