DCI releases info on Cedar Rapids police officers involved in fatal shooting

Gazette staff

CEDAR RAPIDS — Two officers both hired onto the Cedar Rapids Police Department in 2008 were identified Thursday as the officers who fired at a man during a domestic disturbance earlier this week.

According to the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, Officers Ashleigh Steil and Jeremiah White were involved in the fatal shooting. They are on paid leave, which is typical practice, while the shooting is being reviewed.

The DCI said Thursday that both have been interviewed by agents.

Cedar Rapids police were called Monday night to the Valley High Apartments, 1735 Edgewood Rd. NW, over a domestic disturbance. Authorities said police encountered a woman who had been stabbed several times.

Steil and White fired their service weapons at the man investigators believe was her attacker — Markell Bivins, 25, who court records identify was the father of one of her children.

Authorities said that both officers fired, but did not disclose how many times Bivins had been struck.

His victim, Raelynn Finn, 25, was hospitalized. In an interview Wednesday with The Gazette, she lauded the fast response from police.

'If they didn't act as quickly as they did, my kids wouldn't have their mom, which is the most important thing to me in my eyes.'