Grand jury declines charges in fatal police shooting

CELNA - A Mercer County grand jury declined Thursday to issue any indictments in the fatal shooting of 22-year-old Moses Alik of Celina by a sheriff's deputy on Dec. 31, 2024, special prosecutor Eva Yarger said in a statement.

Yarger presented the results of the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation's probe into the shooting death of Alik to the grand jury, according to a news release issued on her behalf by Mercer County Prosecutor Erin Minor.

"The evidence was presented, and the grand jurors were asked whether the shooting was justified," Minor told The Daily Standard. "She did not ask them to consider any specific charges."

Minor also offered her statement on the investigation.

"I'm glad that the officers involved were cleared of any wrongdoing in this matter," she said. "I have confidence that the grand jurors reviewed all of the evidence presented to them and came to the right conclusion. So now the officers can put this behind them and move forward and continue to do their jobs every day and serve the citizens of Mercer County."

The incident unfolded in the early morning hours of Dec. 31 when a call came in to the Celina Police Department about a man with a knife, according to a Mercer County Sheriff's Office news release.      Mercer County Sheriff's Office Deputy Spencer Heinl, who was in Celina, went to back up Celina police officers at Dockside Marathon at 303 S. Main St. at 3:03 a.m.

When confronted by officers, the suspect, identified as Alik, reportedly brandished a knife. A Celina police officer deployed a taser but it did not disable Alik, according to the release.

Alik then raised the knife above his head and "charged at Deputy Heinl," the release states.

Heinl discharged his firearm, striking Alik, who fell to the ground. Officers immediately called for EMS and started life-saving measures. Alik was transported by Celina EMS to Mercer County Community Hospital in Coldwater where he was pronounced dead.

Body camera and cruiser camera footage provided by the sheriff's office shows three officers converging around Alik in the parking lot behind the gas station with their guns drawn.

Officers can be heard repeatedly ordering Alik to get on the ground and drop the knife. At one point, Alik, holding the knife above his head, advances toward Heinl. The deputy appears to fire five rounds at Alik, who then falls to the ground.

The sheriff's office contacted the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and requested they complete an investigation into the incident.

Heinl, as a matter of routine, was temporarily placed on administrative leave as the investigation began.

"I want to stress, this is not disciplinary leave, this is a normal practice in law enforcement as investigations like this proceed," then Sheriff Jeff Grey said in the release.

A BCI report typically contains all of the investigation's findings, such as witness interviews, lab test results, photos and videos, in a strictly factual presentation of all the evidence gathered over the course of the probe.

Minor called BCI's investigation into the fatal shooting of Alik "voluminous" and "very thorough."

Minor told The Daily Standard in June that she turned BCI's completed report over to Yarger, the prosecutor in Van Wert County, to avoid the perception of impropriety, as Minor's office maintains close ties to local law enforcement.

"We work with these officers frequently - not necessarily on a daily basis, but often," she reiterated Thursday. "To avoid the appearance of any type of impropriety, we decided from the outset that we were not going to be involved in the review of the evidence that was gathered in this case for really the same reasons why the Mercer County Sheriff's Office called in BCI - to do the investigation. It's got to be hands off."

Yarger previously handled a local case involving a Celina police fatal shooting of 24-year-old Corey Andrew of St. Marys in the early morning hours of Aug. 25, 2023.