On May 22, 1998, Lebron Hensley, a patrolman for the Cleveland Police Department, received a report that a shooting had occurred at the apartment complex located at 580 Dooley Street in the city of Cleveland. The first officer to arrive at the scene, Hensley observed two gunshot victims on a balcony of one of the apartments. One victim was sitting in a chair and bleeding from the head. The other was lying on the floor face down in a pool of blood. Hensley immediately checked their condition. The victim in the chair was conscious but unresponsive--he was leaning over with his face in his hands and appeared to have been shot somewhere in the head. The victim on the ground exhibited no vital signs at all. Within a matter of minutes, the ambulance and additional officers arrived at the scene. The victims on the balcony were later identified as Kenneth Blair and Charles Massengill. Blair was the victim on the ground, and Massengill was seated in the chair. Hensley did not see any other victims at that time.

Once the victims were removed for medical treatment, Gates and the other police officers began interviewing witnesses and searching the area for evidence. The police located a set of keys belonging to one of the victims, several spent rounds of ammunition (later identified as .22 caliber shell casings), a baseball cap, and a bottle of some kind of alcoholic beverage in the gravel parking lot below the stairs. County officials reported spotting persons and a car matching the witnesses' description of the suspects and their vehicle: three black males in a small, white four-door car, with a "drive-out tag" in the rear window.

Jimmy Woody, a patrolman for the Bradley County Sheriff's Office, testified that he was one of the police officers involved in the pursuit of the shooting suspects. The chase began shortly after Officer Paul Leroy initially spotted the suspects' vehicle near the Waffle House on Georgetown Road. Leroy reported observing the vehicle drive onto Interstate 75, near exit 25, and he followed it for several miles while waiting for assistance. When the suspects reached exit 33, Woody was within a mile of Leroy and both officers activated their blue lights and sirens. The suspects responded by accelerating. They drove recklessly, at speeds of 70 to 80 miles per hour, constantly switching lanes and also traveling in the emergency lane. The chase continued for approximately two miles. Then the driver of the vehicle suddenly pulled over and stopped the car in the median on the left side of the interstate, between the Charleston exit and the river on the northbound side. The passenger in the front seat remained in the vehicle, but the driver and backseat passenger leaped out of the car and ran west toward the southbound lane. Sergeant Collins and Clancy Bryson, also involved in the pursuit, chased the fleeing suspects on foot. One was captured in the woods, and the other was apprehended sometime later near the truck stop at exit 33. Woody identified Defendant as the driver of the vehicle, but did not testify as to whether Defendant was the suspect captured in the woods or the one apprehended later, near the truckstop.

Sergeant John Collins, a patrolman for the Bradley County Sheriff's Office, testified that he also participated in the pursuit of Defendant. As the officers were closing in on the vehicle, Collins made eye contact with the driver, who grinned at him as he pulled alongside the suspects. Collins identified Defendant as

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