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Warren man testifies during evidence suppression hearing on his arrest caught on video
By ROBERT CONNELLY
AUSTINTOWN
Jason Morrison spent his 37th birthday testifying in an evidence-suppression hearing.
That hearing before Judge David A. D’Apolito was about the arrest of Morrison and whether what he is purported to have said to police will be part of evidence at his trial. Judge D’Apolito will make that decision in the coming weeks.
The nearly two-hour hearing took place in Mahoning County Area Court on Wednesday morning. Austintown Patrolman Adam Hess and Morrison, of Selkirk Bush Road in Warren, testified, and Morrison’s 16-minute video was played of his traffic experiment, stop by authorities and subsequent arrest.
Morrison was charged with two misdemeanors: aggravated menacing and failure to disclose one’s personal information. The aggravated-menacing charge is for when Morrison is purported to have told Hess: “We will meet again when I get out, and next time you better have your gun ready,” according to the Austintown police report.
While being transported to the Mahoning County jail, Morrison is purported to have told Hess: “I hope some black guy shoots you in the head. I would not feel twice bad for you.”
The video was posted online and challenged whether the arrest violated Morrison’s First Amendment rights.
Assistant prosecutor Ken Cardinal questioned Morrison at length about his filming of traffic patterns at Mahoning Avenue and Raccoon Road at 1:30 a.m. March 21. Morrison said he did that due to traffic concerns, and he testified that he knew a person who received a ticket going through the light when it went from green to red.
“I was there to film a traffic light,” Morrison said.
A man in a red car who questioned Morrison about why he was filming his car subsequently called police. It remains unclear if he was an off-duty police officer or in a similar-style uniform. From there, Morrison began walking to his residence on Idlewood Road, near the Mahoning Avenue and Raccoon Road intersection.
Morrison initially was stopped by officials from the Ohio State Highway Patrol. He did not provide his identification to either trooper, but did tell them he had been filming traffic patterns. When Hess arrived, he asked for Morrison’s identification due to having received a call about a suspicious person.
Cardinal argued Wednesday that Morrison did not tell Hess about his experiment. “I’ve never seen him before. It’s a high-crime area,” Hess testified of the intersection. “[There was] just a lot of factors. Through the area a lot of recent crimes [had been] committed there.” He gave examples of copper and vehicle thefts.
Morrison testified that he didn’t tell Hess about his experiment because the officer did not ask him. Cardinal said to Morrison during questioning, “You’re baiting the police.”