Video shows start of Brookville incident

Bond was set at $1 million for Conrad E. Davis, 27, who police say fired on officers.

Video released Thursday by the Ohio State Highway Patrol shows two vehicles whizzing by a trooper stationed west of Brookville on Monday night before a crash and shootout left one woman dead and one officer injured.

After a white Cadillac crashed, a shootout moments later resulted in the death of Ashley Sides, 31, of Cookeville, Tenn., and to officer Henry Edds being shot in the left arm in the Speedway gas station parking lot. Edds and officer Frank Graci have been put on paid administrative leave per departmental policy.

Sides’ boyfriend, Conrad E. Davis, 27, also of Cookeville, had a $1 million cash surety bond set Thursday during his video arraignment in Montgomery County’s Western Division Municipal Court in New Lebanon.

David pleaded not guilty to two first-degree felony charges for felonious assault on a police officer and a fourth-degree felony for improper handling of a firearm in a motor vehicle. Davis served 18 months as a Marine before being dismissed at the rank of private.

Meantime, the city of Brookville refused to release dash-cam footage from three different police vehicles in connection with the shootout.

In a letter to Cox Media Group Ohio, Brookville law director Rodney Stephan wrote Brookville "asserts that this record is confidential law enforcement investigatory record as defined in Ohio Revised Code Section 149.43 and is therefore exempt from disclosure," he said. "The dash camera video pertains to a law enforcement matter of a criminal nature and is specific investigatory work product in an on-going criminal investigation."

Brookville police have turned over the criminal and internal investigations to the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office, which has repeatedly declined to answer any questions about the incident.

The complaint and affidavit signed by Montgomery County Sheriff’s Det. Eric Dingee said Davis fired his handgun at police in the parking lot of Speedway at 799 Arlington Road on Monday night.

“Brookville Police officers returned fire in the lot,” the complaint said. “Brookville Officer Henry Edds ultimately sustained a gunshot wound to his left arm.”

The statement of facts does not describe whose bullets hit Edds or Sides — who died of multiple gunshot wounds. A friend of Sides told this news organization she didn’t know Sides to be familiar with guns.

“Not that I am aware of,” said Jamie Ott-Havens, who lives in Cookeville but was born in Dayton. “Never saw her with one and I have no clue.”

At 9:37 p.m., cruiser camera footage from an OSHP trooper shows a white Cadillac and blue Subaru driving past the trooper, who immediately pulls onto the highway to follow the vehicles.

After a couple of minutes, a car is seen taking the Arlington Road exit and the trooper driving past that exit in the left lane and a trooper saying the car exited. Later, the video shows the cruiser turning around five minutes after the pursuit began.

The report filed by trooper Kyle Harris lists resisting arrest by fleeing as the violation. The report does not list a suspect’s name or vehicle.

“An attempt was made to stop the suspect’s vehicle for a speed violation,” said the publicly available portion of the OSHP report filed at 3:09 p.m. Nov. 1 and approved by a supervisor Nov. 2. “The suspect’s vehicle fled from the Trooper. A short pursuit ensued. The pursuit was terminated due to excessive speeds and passing vehicles on the right.”

Ott-Havens said she’d known Sides since she was 13 years old. She echoed another one of Sides’ friends in saying Sides was a good friend and a great mother to her three children who will truly be missed by many people.

“As one of those people I know we all would appreciate that (being focused on). She has children that will someday read and see all that is written about their mother,” Ott-Havens said, later adding, “She was not some gun-toting criminal. She was a good person and it’s out of character what happened.”

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