A 37-year-old Lorain man forced a Brinks armored truck driver into her vehicle at gunpoint outside an Elyria AT&T store, stole cash, and fled in a black Hyundai before leading police on a chase that topped 100 mph and ended with him taking a mother of four hostage in her North Olmsted apartment, where an Elyria officer shot and killed him.
John P. Johnson died at Fairview Hospital after the confrontation on January 21, 2026. No officers or civilians were injured. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation handled the officer-involved shooting review. A Cuyahoga County grand jury later returned a no bill, declining charges against the officer.
Elyria police were dispatched at about 3:02 p.m. to the AT&T store at 1547 West River Road North after a report of an aggravated robbery involving a Brink’s truck. According to police, Johnson approached the driver, forced her into the armored truck at gunpoint, took an undisclosed amount of cash, and fled in a separate black Hyundai.
An employee inside the store called 911 and provided a vehicle description and license plate. Officers quickly located the Hyundai in Lorain and attempted a traffic stop. Johnson fled, launching a multi-agency pursuit that crossed into Elyria and continued east on U.S. Route 20 (Center Ridge Road) into North Olmsted.
Elyria Police Chief James Welsh said the suspect showed no regard for the safety of motorists or pedestrians, with speeds exceeding 100 mph. Officers from Elyria, Lorain, and North Olmsted joined the chase. At Columbia and Brookpark roads in North Olmsted, police deployed stop sticks. The Hyundai crashed near the intersection.
Johnson got out holding a pistol and ran to a nearby apartment complex on Clareshire Drive. Ring doorbell camera footage shows a woman and her young children carrying groceries into their home as sirens wail in the background. Johnson runs past the children, points a handgun at the woman later identified as Alia Aboalodos, orders her inside, and pushes her through the doorway. Her four children were present.
Within seconds an Elyria police cruiser arrives. Patrol Officer Ali Sabeiha moves the children away from the door, kicks it open, and fires. Body-camera and doorbell footage later released show the rapid sequence. Officers recovered a Glock handgun believed to belong to Johnson inside the apartment along with cash linked to the robbery. Johnson was transported to Fairview Hospital and pronounced dead.
“He’s a hero. This was a serious situation from the start,” Chief Welsh said of Sabeiha. “It was a violent crime, a kidnapping, a robbery, the officers pursued the suspect, and prevented him from harming anyone else.” Welsh described Aboalodos as an innocent civilian who was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Johnson had a prior criminal record. In 2013 he was convicted in Lorain County of aggravated robbery and robbery stemming from a Dollar General store incident in Elyria and sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was released and later, in 2025, convicted of felony marijuana trafficking, possession, and weapons charges. At the time of the January robbery he remained on community control that was scheduled to run through June 2028.
In May 2026, Officer Sabeiha received the Freedom 250 Hometown Hero Award from U.S. Attorney David M. Toepfer for the Northern District of Ohio. The award citation praised his decision to enter the apartment knowing innocent lives were at stake and his composure under fire. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation’s review and the subsequent grand jury decision cleared him of criminal liability.
The exact amount of cash taken from the Brink’s truck was never publicly disclosed. No other suspects were charged in connection with the robbery or the subsequent events. The case remains one of the more dramatic examples of an armored-car robbery escalating into a high-speed multi-jurisdictional pursuit and a residential hostage situation within a single afternoon in northeast Ohio.
