Shortly after the fatal shooting of Bryant, Mitts engaged in a gunfight with several police officers, which resulted in the death of Sergeant Dennis Glivar.
[3] Mitts attended the Garfield Heights High School in 1970 and also studied photojournalism in college for 1+1⁄2 years.
[3] On August 14, 1994, after an argument at home with his former wife, 42-year-old Harry Mitts Jr. went on a six-hour shooting spree in his neighborhood in Garfield Heights, Ohio, which resulted in the murders of two people: 28-year-old John Bryant, who was African-American, and 40-year-old Sergeant Dennis Glivar, who was a white police officer in the Garfield Heights Police Department.
According to Timothy "Tim" Roane, he was helping his brother-in-law move furniture into the apartment when the shooting happened and witnessed Bryant being shot.
For the most serious charge of aggravated murder, Mitts potentially faced the death penalty under Ohio state law.
A pre-trial hearing was granted the same month when Mitts was indicted, so as to determine whether he was mentally competent to stand trial.
It was concluded on September 21, 1994, that Mitts was fit to plead and go on trial for the murders of Sergeant Dennis Glivar and John Bryant.
His defense mainly constituted that he was suffering from alcohol intoxication at the time of the shootings and that his mental state was therefore impaired when he committed the double murder.
[7] On November 3, 1994, the jury returned with their verdict, unanimously finding Mitts guilty of all charges and he was convicted accordingly.
During a hearing conducted on August 19, 2013, Mitts pleaded for leniency on the basis that he found God in prison and was willing to take responsibility for his actions.
[26][27] The state parole board, in the end, unanimously rejected the clemency petition on August 27, 2013, stating that Mitts had murdered Bryant in cold blood just because he was African-American and additionally killed a police officer soon after, which demonstrated his blatant disregard for the lives of both innocent bystanders and law enforcement officers, and the circumstances of the case were such that it was the "worst of the worst" death penalty cases.
[28][29][30] The state governor John Kasich similarly declined to grant clemency based on the parole board's unanimous recommendation to refuse clemency for Mitts,[31][32][33] who was subsequently moved to the death house a few days before his impending execution to be placed under maximum surveillance up until the commencement of his execution procedure.
[35][36] On September 25, 2013, 61-year-old Harry Mitts Jr. was put to death by lethal injection at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility.
Glivar's mother, Helen, told the press about her feelings towards the death of her son's killer, "It is finished."
[41][42] As a result, Ohio authorities came up with solutions to replace pentobarbital and its lethal injection protocols with new drugs and protocols to help facilitate their scheduled lethal injection executions that were set to occur after the execution of Mitts, and the new method was set to be announced in October 2013.