Rookie Cop Finds Himself In Five Nights A Freddy's Situation At Crackhouse, Ends Up Shooting Partner

Cleveland, Ohio — A Cleveland police officer sued her former partner and accused him of using excessive force when he shot her when the two responded to a call for a man with a gun. Jennifer Kilnapp, in her lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court in Cleveland, accused city and police officials of lying about the circumstances surrounding the shooting and wrongfully charging the man police arrested. She also accused the city of failing to properly train its new officers and unfairly disciplining her, while her partner — then-rookie officer Bailey Gannon — never faced discipline for the July 20, 2020, shooting. The bullet fired by Gannon ripped through Kilnapp’s forearm. Bullet fragments lodged in her bicep and chest, near her spine, according to her attorneys, Matthew Besser and Cathleen Bolek. Two years later, she still has nerve damage in her arm, wrist and hand. She also suffers from post traumatic stress disorder.

The shooting happened at a boarding house on East 81st Street after a woman called police and reported a man was acting strange and had fired a bullet into the floor. Kilnapp and Gannon arrived, and the man — Daryl Borden — was inside a bathroom with the door closed. Police and prosecutors for more than a year called the shooting an “ambush” by Borden. They said when the officers opened the door, Borden fired at them, hitting Kilnapp. A SWAT team later arrested Borden, and prosecutors charged him with attempted murder. The lawsuit said homicide investigators began to suspect the day of the shooting that Gannon may have shot his partner.