In a tense encounter captured on bodycam footage, Mackenzie Shirilla’s father, Steve Shirilla, branded his daughter as “dumb” after her arrest in November 2022. The arrest came in connection with a tragic car crash over three months prior, which resulted in the deaths of her ex-boyfriend and a friend.
At the Strongsville Police Department, Steve Shirilla demanded to speak with Mackenzie, who was 18 at the time and facing double murder charges. His frustration was palpable as he argued with officers, insisting that they had no right to communicate with her without her lawyer’s consent.
“I need to speak to my daughter, because you guys aren’t allowed to speak to her at all – that’s from the lawyer,” he exclaimed, his hands gesticulating emphatically in the footage of the confrontation.
As he paced the lobby, Steve pressed further, asking, “Am I going to be allowed to have a two-minute conversation with her?” His request was met with a firm response from a police official.
“You cannot talk to her while she’s here, no,” the official stated. “She’s an adult. She can’t take any phone calls right now.”
“Why doesn’t she get a phone call?” Steve fumes.
His wife and Mackenzie’s mother, Natalie Shirilla, jumps in: “She has legal rights!”
As another officer attempts to explain the situation – saying, “She is 18 years old” – Steve seemingly snaps.
“Yeah, she’s a dumb 18-year-old that just turned 18,” he bellows.
Natalie then bizarrely chuckles as she tells him, “Stop saying she’s dumb.”
But Steve doubles down.
“All the kids nowadays are dumb. These guys are going to take advantage of her. She’s not allowed to speak to you guys. I’m telling you that,” he charges.
“Listen, her attorney can call us,” the now-fed-up officer says, following the official through a door to get away from the tense exchange.
Even after the cop shuts the door behind him, leaving the exasperated parents alone in the waiting room, Steve can still be heard shouting: “Don’t ask her any questions – she’s not allowed to speak to you!”
Earlier in the confrontation, Steve blasted cops for executing the arrest warrant the same day a judge signed it – despite the official explaining that it’s routine police practice.
“How you guys did this on a weekend is just – all you had to do was go, ‘Hey, there’s a warrant for her,’” Steve says, mimicking a phone with his hand. “We would’ve brought her right down here no problem.”
“It’s just unbelievable…it’s just beyond me,” he adds, throwing his arms up and pacing the lobby again.
Steve also ripped the arresting officer, who he said had been stationed outside the family home, as a “creeper.”
The hardline official didn’t mince words in his response to the frantic father’s complaints.
“We follow the law – that’s what we’re doing today,” he calmly says, according to the clip.
Mackenzie, now 20, was found guilty of intentionally plowing her car into a brick wall, killing Dominic Russo and Davion Flanagan, during a dramatic bench trial in August 2023. She is serving two concurrent 15 years to life sentences in an Ohio women’s prison, though she is appealing her conviction for the second time.
Steve and Natalie have faced intense public backlash for their seemingly cavalier approach to parenting and their daughter’s horrific crimes, as captured in a new popular Netflix documentary, “The Crash.”
“I knew she was smoking dope – I don’t have a problem with her smoking dope,” Steve said at one point in the movie, while addressing Mackenzie’s frequent marijuana consumption throughout her teens.
“If you’re going to smoke a drug, that’s the one I believe you should take…you know, she’s not shooting up,” he continued.
The questionable comments swiftly landed him in hot water professionally.
Just days after the documentary’s release, Steve was suspended from his teaching job at a Pre-K through eighth grade school outside of Cleveland amidst allegations of his “poor judgement,” according to school officials.
He has since expressed dissatisfaction about how the film was edited, as not all of his comments made the final cut – but maintained both his and Natalie’s longtime position that their daughter is innocent.