By Phil Trexler
Shaune Chesney had never been inside the Summit County Jail.
But there he sat last year, amid thugs, rapists and killers,
accused of callously striking a child with his car and then driving away as the
kindergartner writhed in pain.
Chesney was arrested a week after the incident as an army of
police officers stopped him as he drove to pick up his son from Judith A.
Resnik elementary school on West Market Street.
“I didn’t see it coming,” he recalled Wednesday.
In the back of a sergeant’s cruiser, he told Akron police
that they had the wrong man. The sergeant, however, was more interested in
getting his confession, he said.
It took eight days before police arrested the real hit-skip
driver and allowed Chesney to go free.
In the aftermath, Chesney dropped out of Stark State College
and said he still struggles to find work. He moved his 7-year-old son to a
different school. And, he said, he’s struggled to deal with his incarceration.
According to Chesney’s attorney, the city declined to make a
restitution offer, leaving him with no choice but to file a lawsuit this week
in Summit County Common Pleas Court.
“It’s very difficult,” Chesney, 49, said of his stay in
jail. “You’re in there with other inmates, most that really need to be there.
You’re cut off from everything. Then you have to deal with the whole mental
situation and try to figure out how to get out of there and fight the case.”
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.
“[The city] said they’re not going to make an offer,” said
Cleveland-area attorney Alan B. Harris, who represents Chesney. “We will leave
that up to a jury.”
Chesney’s arrest took place last March 21 as he drove a dark
green 1997 Mercury Marquis to pick up his son, Taeshaune, then 6, from Resnik
school.
His photo and details of his arrest were the subject of a
news release by Akron police. Most TV, newspaper and radio news outlets
published a story.
Harris said police knew of the other suspect through a Crime
Stoppers’ tip given the same day that Chesney was arrested. But, he said,
police failed to act quickly. Instead, Chesney spent more than a week confined
to a cellblock.
City Law Director Cheri Cunningham declined to comment on
the lawsuit.
“It was a travesty of the system,” Harris said. “He was
innocent and did nothing wrong.”
At the time of the arrest, a police spokesman said witnesses
identified Chesney as the hit-skip driver. The incident took place on Goodhue
Avenue, just blocks from Resnik, and left a 5-year-old boy with a broken leg.
Chesney was held in the Summit County Jail for eight days
until police concluded its second investigation into the actual hit-skip
driver, who drove a 1995 Chrysler New Yorker.
In a Beacon Journal interview within an hour after being
cleared last year, Chesney said he was glad that police “caught the right guy”
and immediately added that his “thoughts and prayers have always been with the
student who was injured.”
“Everybody threw me under the bus,” he said, “but I prayed
about that and I was very bothered by what happened to [the child].”
Police later arrested William E. Wilkes Jr., 38, of North
Hawkins Avenue, Akron. Wilkes confessed to the hit-skip incident and
subsequently was charged with driving under a suspended license and felony
hit-skip.
Wilkes eventually pleaded guilty and received a 90-day jail
sentence and a one-year license suspension.
Chesney said that the months that followed his jail stay
were arduous. His name is still on the Internet, linked to the story. It
doesn’t seem to go away.
“When I was arrested, I couldn’t believe it at first,” he
said. “It was humbling, No. 1, and, No. 2, it was very demoralizing.”
Phil Trexler can be reached at 330-996-3717 or
ptrexler@thebeaconjournal.com. He can be followed on Twitter at
www.twitter.com/PhilTrexler.
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