Two claim Ellebe was not behind wheel of stolen vehicle
Filings in a civil suit initiated on behalf of the estate of 12-year-old Michael Ellerbe indicated that two people have told investigators for the boy’s father that the boy might not have been the driver of a stolen vehicle the day he was shot. Trinea Jacobs-Ramsey of Cleveland Avenue in Uniontown told investigators that she saw the stolen Ford Bronco shortly before the vehicle crashed and Ellerbe fled on Dec. 24, 2002, and was certain he wasn’t driving it as police have testified.
In a statement given on March 27, 2003, and released along with other evidence as part of the federal lawsuit against state police, Jacobs-Ramsey said that she saw the vehicle at Pershing Court and Lemon Wood Acres just before the shooting. She said she knew Ellerbe was not the driver, “Because I know what Michael Ellerbe looks like, and the young boy that was driving it, was not him.”
Ellerbe, police have maintained, was driving the Bronco when he crashed in Uniontown’s East End. He got out of the vehicle and fled from troopers Juan Curry and Samuel Nassan. During the chase, prior testimony indicated that Curry scaled a fence with his gun drawn.
The weapon caught on the fence and discharged. Believing Curry had been shot, Nassan fired. His shot killed Ellerbe. Police later learned that the boy was not armed.
Shortly after the shooting, a Fayette County coroner’s jury ruled the shooting was justified and both county and state prosecutors have declined to press charges against either trooper.
Ellerbe’s father, Michael Hickenbottom, filed a federal suit, claiming that police violated his son’s civil rights. Hickenbottom’s attorneys have claimed that police shot Ellerbe and then conspired to cover it up.
Earlier this summer, attorneys for Nassan and Curry filed documents asking the suit be dismissed. Last week, attorney Robert Giroux Jr. responded to that by filing legal arguments and several interviews with people who were around at the time of the shooting.
In addition to Jacobs-Ramsey, Angela Lee also told Giroux’s investigators that it did not appear to her that Ellerbe was driving the Bronco.
During a Feb. 25, 2003, interview, Lee said she was inside her Cleveland Avenue home fixing her daughter’s hair when she heard a commotion outside. She said she saw two officers outside with guns drawn, yelling for whomever was inside the Bronco to get out.
Lee’s statement indicated that it seemed to her that the person in the back seat seemed to be climbing over something as he tried to get out.
As that happened, Lee said her daughter noticed who was getting out. “Mommy, it’s a boy. It’s a boy,” Lee told investigators her daughter said.
Lee’s statement indicated she lost sight of what happened, but heard three pops a short time later.
Giroux pointed to the statements from those women and other plaintiff-bolstering interviews in asking a federal judge to maintain the suit so that jurors can decide if Ellerbe’s rights were violated.
He also made note of suit filed in February by former state police Sgt. James Baranowski, one of the incident commanders at the time Ellerbe was shot. Baranowski’s suit, filed against Uniontown barracks commander Lt. Charles Depp and troop commander Capt. Roger N. Waters, claimed that he was forced out of the state police because he questioned police conduct and testimony in the Ellerbe case.
Giroux noted that Baranowski was “in the process of uncovering the truth about the subject shooting when he was constructively discharged from the state police.”