Police were confronted with a man carrying an ‘older weapon’ with a
bayonet attached while responding to a domestic call of a person stabbed
on Lincoln Avenue in Walnut Hills Monday morning.
While en route, police learned it was possibly a homicide with an armed
suspect still in the house, said Assistant Police Chief James Whalen.
Four officers responded, and were confronted by Gregory Sanders, 37, who
came out of the house he shared with his mother, Deborah Sanders, and down
the front steps holding the weapon, Whalen said.
Three officers fired a total of 20 shots, killing Sanders, Whalen said
Monday afternoon at a press conference.
Police don’t yet know how many shots hit Sanders; he had “some hits to his
torso, and at least one hit to his head,” Whalen said.
Sanders’ weapon was not loaded.
Police then found Deborah Sanders dead inside the home.
No officers were hurt.
Sanders has “no significant history” of mental illness, but friends said
“he has appeared stressed,” Whalen said.
According to a police communication report, one of the Sanders’ neighbors,
Mark R. Foster, called 911 at 5:02 a.m. after Gregory Sanders broke out
one of Foster’s windows.
Sanders told Foster he’d just “murdered his mother” by stabbing “her in
head w/pen,” the report states.
Foster told the dispatcher he did not think Sanders, 36, had mental
problems, but he did possibly use drugs.
In a phone interview this morning, Foster, 57, said he was upset to be
woken from a sound sleep when Sanders busted the stained glass window on
his front door.
“He woke me up. He almost got shot. I was sleeping real good,” Foster
said. “I opened the door and spoke to him. ‘Man, what is going on with
you? What are you doing? You broke my glass out, man.’ It’s probably going
to cost more than $500. It’s stained glass. He said ‘I just murdered my
mom, Mr. Foster.’ I said, ‘You did what?!’ I was in shock after that.”
Sanders, who at that point was not armed with the gun, dashed off while
Foster called 911 to summon help.
“I went back to put the phone down on the base after talking to the
dispatcher,” Foster said. “(The police) came right away because by the
time I went into my bedroom, I heard the shots. I looked out the front
door. There he was in the street, face down.”
Foster said Sanders had been taking care of his mother, who he said is 60
and suffers from terminal brain cancer, for the past three years.
“She had brain cancer and he had been taking care of her,” Foster said.
“Obviously it is way out of his normal MO.”
Sanders took his mother to all of her doctor appointments and treatments,
Foster said.
“He did all that,” Foster said. “That’s why it’s a shock.”
Street outreach workers with the Cincinnati Initiative to Reduce Violence
came to Lincoln Avenue this morning to talk to residents and make sure
they get the facts about the police shooting.
One of them, Rev. Peterson Mingo, an Evanston pastor, said the area is not
a high-crime neighborhood and includes at least one nursing home.
Foster said homes on his street are being renovated, and low-income
residents have been evicted. But, the city has failed to pick up the
former tenants’ belongings, and those have been left sitting and rotting
on the street for months.
He said he does not know who to contact in the city sanitation department
to complain.
“It’s an eyesore seeing these peoples’ belongings still out on the streets
three or four months after they’ve been evicted,” he said. “It makes the
whole area look bad. This is embarrassing.”
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