CALCUTTA, Ohio (WKBN) – As a local community wrestles with tragedy following a shooting in Columbiana County that left a child dead, an officer wounded and the suspect shot and killed, another local community is relating to the grief.
In 2017, the Girard Police Department lost Officer Justin Leo. He was killed in the line of duty, and when the authorities heard the news that St. Clair Township officer Dakota Wetzel was shot in the Columbiana County incident, it brought back memories of that painful day.
Girard Police Chief John Norman still has vivid memories of the night of October 21, 2017 when Leo was killed. And when he learned St. Clair Township detective Dakota Wetzel had been shot in the line of duty those memories came rushing back.
“My thought was is he okay? Is he going to make it. But it brought me back to that night when Justin was shot,” Norman said.
Seven years ago officer Justin Leo was killed in the line of duty while responding to a domestic violence call. Detective Wetzel was responding to a report of a suicidal man. But calls like those are becoming more common in police work.
“I really put it on par now with domestic violence where you’re going into a situation where someone is having a mental health crisis and you want to be sympathetic — empathetic to them. But you always have to have in the back of your mind safety,” Norman said.
Norman says Crisis Intervention Training is incorporated into their preparation, and officers utilize de-escalation techniques to try and resolve the conflict peacefully.
“What not to say as much as what to say. Try to be empathetic to them. Listen to them. That’s important, listening to them,” Norman said.
Since officer Leo’s passing, Chief Norman has been at the forefront of supporting departments who lose an officer in the line of duty, knowing the devastation that it can cause to a department and a community.
“I don’t even know how to describe that. It was like we all walked around for weeks in a daze. We were talking to him on Friday and Saturday he’s not here,” Norman said.
He says that support and sympathy are two of the biggest ways they can help when an officer is killed in action. It’s comfort that many departments around the country offered them for Officer Leo and now they continue to pay it forward.
“No matter if you have 30,000 cops or 30 cops. We’re all the same. We’re all in that profession where I get up in the morning, I might not go home at night,” Norman said. “You find a ssense of that family and it was just a big comfort knowing that people across the country are supporting us.
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