Luke Stewart

Luke Stewart, 23, was shot and killed by Euclid, Ohio Police Officer Matthew Rhodes in the early morning hours of March 13, 2017, after officers found him asleep in a parked car reported as suspicious. Neither Rhodes nor his partner, Officer Louis Catalani, identified themselves as police before approaching the vehicle, both later testified; when Stewart woke and started driving away, Rhodes climbed partway into the moving car, deployed a Taser and struck Stewart repeatedly, then shot him as the car struck the patrol vehicle. Stewart was unarmed. A grand jury declined to indict Rhodes later that year. Neither officer wore a body camera. A federal judge dismissed the family's civil rights lawsuit, a decision upheld on appeal and left standing when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case in 2021 — yet a Cuyahoga County jury, hearing a separate state wrongful-death claim in November 2022, awarded Stewart's family $4.4 million, finding Rhodes had acted recklessly. No one has ever been criminally charged in Stewart's death.

Euclid, OH · Cuyahoga County

• 2017: Case opens — victim reported missing or found.
• Documented milestones (renewed investigation, media coverage, family advocacy) to be added as sourced.
• Present: case remains unresolved. No named suspect has been convicted.

• The suspicious-vehicle report, the officers' approach, and the shooting, per the Ohio Attorney General's investigative summary and testimony from both the criminal grand jury process and later civil trials.
• Officer Rhodes positioned his patrol car in front of Stewart's, telling investigators “we normally have one vehicle behind and one in front in case they pull forward”; both Rhodes and Catalani later testified under oath that neither had identified himself as a police officer before approaching.
• When Stewart woke and started the car, Catalani tried to pull him from the driver's side while Rhodes pushed from the passenger side; Rhodes then entered the vehicle, deployed a Taser six times with little effect, and struck Stewart several times before Stewart's car, still trying to pull away, struck the patrol vehicle and Rhodes fired the fatal shot.
• Toxicology found Stewart's blood alcohol content at 0.250 — more than three times the legal driving limit — along with cocaine and oxycodone; no weapon was found in the car.
• A grand jury declined to indict Rhodes later in 2017; neither he nor Catalani was wearing a body camera during the encounter.
• A federal judge dismissed the family's civil rights lawsuit against Rhodes and the city, ruling no clearly established law barred the officer's conduct; the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case in May 2021, leaving the dismissal in place.
• A separate state wrongful-death lawsuit went to trial in Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas; in November 2022, a jury found Rhodes acted recklessly and awarded Stewart's family $3.9 million for loss of companionship and $500,000 for his pain and suffering, though it declined to award punitive damages.

• Whether Rhodes's decision to climb into a moving vehicle rather than release it, which the family's police-practices expert testified was “a total disregard of training and protocol,” was the proximate cause of the shooting was contested throughout both civil proceedings and was never tested in any criminal trial since the grand jury declined to indict.
• Why the federal appellate courts found no clearly established law violated by Rhodes's conduct, while a state civil jury five years later found that same conduct reckless, has not been reconciled in any single public record.
• The full reasoning behind the grand jury's 2017 decision not to indict has not been made public, as grand jury proceedings are sealed under Ohio law.

• News 5 Cleveland (WEWS) — “Euclid officer not charged in deadly shooting”
• News 5 Cleveland (WEWS) — “Family of man killed by Euclid police officer awarded $4.4 million following civil lawsuit”
• ACLU of Ohio — “Judge's Dismissal of Wrongful Death Lawsuit Perpetuates Police Violence Against People of Color”
• Project Cold Case
• Murder Accountability Project
• NamUs