Suspect indicted in shooting death of teen sandwich shop worker
CLEVELAND -- A young man accused of walking into a suburban sandwich shop called Mr. Hero, firing a gunshot toward the kitchen and killing a teenage worker was indicted on Friday on an aggravated-murder charge.
Daveion Perry entered the Cleveland Heights shop on Oct. 14, fired a shot that struck Sunny Ravi Patel in the back of the head and then fled with money from a cash drawer, authorities said. Sunny, a 15-year-old high school sophomore, had decided not to watch a baseball playoff game with friends that night so he could help out at the shop, which is owned by an aunt and an uncle, relatives said.
“He was one of the brightest, most intelligent kids I’d ever met,” Leon Nack, who worked at Mr. Hero over the summer with Patel, told CBS affiliate WOIO.
Perry also is charged with robbing a Subway sandwich shop in University Heights the following night and attempting to rob of a Dollar Store in Cleveland Heights the day after that.
The 20-year-old Perry was arrested on Sunday after a police detail saw him enter a Dollar Store dressed in clothing matching that of the suspect in the Mr. Hero and Subway robberies, police said. Perry found no employees at the Dollar Store checkout counter and walked out empty-handed, and officers chased him and later found him hiding in a nearby garage, police said.
Perry’s attorney, Charles Swanson, couldn’t immediately be reached for comment by telephone on Friday. He said earlier this week that Perry was “upset with what he did” but would not elaborate.
A grand jury indictment charges Perry, who’s accused of pointing a gun at two police officers during the chase, with felonious assault. A police report said there was an “exchange of gunfire.”
Cleveland Heights will conduct a review to determine whether the police officers followed policies and procedures when they fired their weapons, police Chief Annette Mecklenburg said.
Perry was free on bond and faced sentencing next week for a Cleveland Heights burglary when he was arrested. Juvenile Court records show that he has a lengthy record dating back to when he was 11 and that he spent about 2 1/2 years in an Ohio Department of Youth Services prison.
A judge set a $1 million bond for Perry earlier this week.