Ohio police said a gunman intoxicated with a gulp of beer killed an officer responding to a call in a store parking lot early Saturday morning.
TOLEDO, Ohio – An officer who was answering a call in a store parking lot was shot dead early Saturday morning by an intoxicated man holding a beer, police said.
Toledo officer Anthony Dia was shot in the chest just after midnight in the parking lot of a Home Depot, and was later pronounced dead in a hospital, police chief George Kral said at a press conference.
Witnesses told police that the man shot the officer with a pistol and then entered a wooded area. At some point, officers heard a single shot coming from the forest, Kral said. The gunman, only described as a 57-year-old white man, was found dead of an apparent gunshot wound to the head around 3:15 a.m.
Kral said Dia was sent to check to “make sure this man was fine.” Dia, 26, leaves behind a wife and a 2-year-old boy, the chief said.
Toledo resident Shalene Houke stifled her sobs when she told The Toledo Blade that she overheard the officer calling for help and saying he had been shot before passing out.
“I was young and I was scared,” he said.
Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz said he was in the Toledo Hospital, where Dia was taken after the shooting.
“I will never forget the sight of Officer Dia being taken from the hospital on a stretcher, his body wrapped in an American flag, flanked by some 30 Toledo police officers, saluting and crying,” said the mayor.
Neither Kral nor Kapszukiewicz answered questions during the press conference. More information is expected to be provided at another press conference on Monday.
Governor Mike DeWine expressed his condolences and said he had ordered the flags in Lucas County and the Ohio Statehouse to be flown at half-staff since Sunday through the officer’s funeral service.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said in a statement that his “heart was broken” by the officer’s family.
“Officer Dia lost his life doing what the police do during each vigil of their lives: trying to help someone,” Yost said. “His memory will remain firm forever, a man who did his duty in his final act.”
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