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Sharday Elder

Age : 37

Gender : Female

Race : Black

Date : 08/24/2025

Location : St. Clair Avenue at Addison Road

City : Cleveland

County : Cuyahoga

State : Ohio

Agency : Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Office

Officer(s) :Kasey Loudermilk; Christopher Monda

Cause of Death : Vehicle

Event : Bystander killed by police chase crash

OPEN RECORDS SUMMARY :

On 08/24/2025, at approximately 1:16 a.m., Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s deputies Kasey Loudermilk and Christopher Monda were patrolling downtown Cleveland when they encountered a vehicle near East 13th Street and St. Clair Avenue. Loudermilk was driving the sheriff’s cruiser and Monda was riding in the passenger seat. Deputies reported that the vehicle was traveling recklessly without headlights and that they suspected its driver was impaired.
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Loudermilk attempted to stop the vehicle. The driver continued east on St. Clair Avenue while Loudermilk pursued. The pursuit was authorized by a sheriff’s supervisor and continued despite rapidly increasing speeds.
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During the pursuit, Loudermilk requested and received permission from Sgt. Schlegel to use a PIT maneuver. Loudermilk later wrote that speeds exceeding 80 mph made an immediate PIT unsafe. He accelerated in an effort to catch the vehicle and considered either a PIT maneuver, channeling the vehicle or using a rolling roadblock.
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At one point, Loudermilk pulled alongside or attempted to pull alongside the vehicle. The driver abruptly stopped and turned off St. Clair Avenue. Loudermilk lost sight of the vehicle, made a U-turn and resumed the pursuit after seeing it emerge from a dark lot near Addison Road and St. Clair Avenue.
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Loudermilk again accelerated to catch the vehicle in preparation for another attempt to stop it. Another deputy involved in the pursuit reported that the vehicle reached speeds exceeding 100 mph on St. Clair Avenue.
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At approximately 1:18 a.m., less than three minutes after the pursuit began, 37-year-old Sharday Denise Elder was driving through the intersection near St. Clair Avenue and Addison Road when the pursued vehicle crashed into the driver’s side of her car at high speed. Cleveland surveillance video shows Elder arriving at the intersection moments before the collision.
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The impact severely damaged Elder’s vehicle and trapped her inside. Her passenger, Joshua Earnhert, suffered serious injuries, including a double pelvic fracture. The pursued vehicle contained the driver, an adult woman and a 16-year-old girl; all three were injured, with the teenager suffering a spinal injury.
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The sheriff’s cruiser driven by Loudermilk then sideswiped the wreckage. Monda was injured in the collision. His body-camera recording shows him getting out of the cruiser, initially approaching the pursued vehicle and then returning to Elder’s vehicle. Monda remained with Elder as firefighters worked to free her.
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Elder was transported to University Hospitals, where she died from her injuries. She was a mother of two children, ages 16 and 11.
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The pursued driver was identified as 24-year-old Jaymone Whitaker II. He was indicted on charges including involuntary manslaughter, aggravated vehicular homicide, aggravated vehicular assault, failure to comply, child endangering and impaired driving. On 06/01/2026, Whitaker pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicular homicide, aggravated vehicular assault, vehicular assault, failure to comply and impaired driving.
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Cuyahoga County placed Loudermilk and Monda on paid administrative leave following the fatal pursuit. A special prosecutor reviewed the pursuit and declined to pursue criminal charges against the deputies.
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The fatal crash intensified scrutiny of the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department’s pursuit practices. In October 2025, Sheriff Harold Pretel substantially restricted the department’s vehicle-pursuit policy. The revised policy generally limits pursuits to circumstances involving specified violent felony offenses, with additional provisions governing impaired drivers and other serious circumstances.
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In March 2026, Elder’s family filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Cuyahoga County Sheriff Harold Pretel and deputies involved in the pursuit. The lawsuit alleges that deputies conducted a reckless high-speed pursuit and violated applicable pursuit standards, creating an unreasonable danger to motorists including Elder.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
Deputy Kasey Loudermilk drove the lead sheriff’s cruiser during the pursuit that ended in Sharday Elder’s death. Deputy Christopher Monda was riding in Loudermilk’s passenger seat. Sgt. Schlegel provided supervisory authorization for Loudermilk to use a PIT maneuver during the pursuit.
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This was Loudermilk’s second police pursuit in approximately five months that resulted in the death of an uninvolved woman. On 03/28/2025, Loudermilk led a high-speed pursuit that ended when the pursued driver crashed into a Range Rover driven by 48-year-old Tamya Westmoreland near Interstate 90 and Eddy Road. The impact sent Westmoreland’s vehicle approximately 40 feet from the bridge, where it caught fire. Westmoreland was ejected and died from her injuries on 04/13/2025. The pursued driver also died.
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A special prosecutor subsequently reviewed the Westmoreland pursuit and declined to bring criminal charges against Loudermilk. Five months later, Loudermilk initiated the pursuit that killed Elder.
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Loudermilk’s personnel file revealed significant problems during his hiring process. During the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department background investigation, Loudermilk denied having accepted a police job with Cleveland Clinic despite having done so. After investigators contacted his previous supervisor and questioned him again, Loudermilk admitted that he had lied about accepting the position.
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Loudermilk also omitted from his employment application that the Ohio State Highway Patrol had rejected him after he failed a polygraph examination and that the Highland Heights Police Department had disqualified him after he failed a physical-agility test. The sheriff’s polygraph examiner documented these issues and advised that the information should be considered when deciding whether Loudermilk was an acceptable candidate. The Sheriff’s Department hired him anyway.
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Loudermilk was also involved in an October 2024 police shooting following a vehicle pursuit in downtown Cleveland. Loudermilk and Deputy Isen Vajusi pursued a stolen Nissan carrying three teenagers. After the vehicle crashed and the teenagers ran, deputies fired their weapons and a 15-year-old boy was shot in the leg.
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After reporting revealed the discrepancies in Loudermilk’s hiring background, the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office began reviewing whether his admitted dishonesty created credibility issues when he was used as a prosecution witness.
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In March 2026, a public defender sought to overturn a conviction in a case involving Loudermilk, arguing that information concerning his admitted dishonesty during the hiring process was relevant to his credibility as a police witness.
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SOURCE LINKS :

https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/local/one-dead-several-injured-after-overnight-pursuit-ends-in-crash-on-st-clair-avenue/95-c8713ff6-5a83-4d4e-8ea3-434d37e31baf
https://www.wkyc.com/video/news/local/cleveland/one-dead-several-injured-after-overnight-pursuit-ends-in-crash-on-st-clair-avenue/95-e13a2fbc-ce68-4537-b099-e8b9db3d4292
https://www.cleveland19.com/2025/08/24/woman-an-apparent-innocent-victim-killed-cuyahoga-county-sheriffs-chase/
https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/we-follow-through/body-cam-video-released-in-deputy-chase-and-deadly-crash-that-killed-innocent-mother-of-2
https://www.ideastream.org/law-justice/2025-08-28/cuyahoga-county-sheriff-lifted-restrictions-on-vehicle-pursuit-tactic-after-taking-office
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2025/08/28/cuyahoga-deputies-hired-downtown
https://www.ideastream.org/law-justice/2025-02-06/under-pressure-cuyahoga-county-releases-video-of-teens-shooting-by-deputy
https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/special-prosecutor-determines-cuyahoga-county-deputies-did-not-cause-crash-that-killed-innocent-driver
https://www.ideastream.org/law-justice/2026-03-30/families-of-women-killed-in-cuyahoga-sheriffs-deputy-pursuits-sue-those-involved
https://www.cleveland19.com/2026/06/01/driver-pleads-guilty-death-innocent-woman-killed-during-cuyahoga-county-sheriffs-chase/
GoFundMe:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-us-give-sharday-elder-a-proper-burial