TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — A Toledo police officer who was responding to a disturbance call in a store parking lot in the northernmost part of Toledo, was shot and killed early Saturday morning by an intoxicated man holding a beer, police said.
Twenty-six year old Toledo officer Anthony Dia was shot in the chest just after midnight in the parking lot of a Home Depot, and later pronounced dead at a hospital, Police Chief George Kral said at a news conference.
Witnesses told police the man shot the officer with a handgun and then went into a wooded area. At some point, officers heard a single gunshot coming from the woods, Kral said. According to the Toledo police department, the gunman, only described as a 57-year-old white male, was found dead of an apparent gunshot wound to the head around 3:15 a.m.
Dia leaves behind a wife and 2-year-old child, the chief said.
Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz said he was at Toledo Hospital where Dia was taken after the shooting.
“I will never forget the sight of Officer Dia being wheeled out of the hospital on a gurney, his body wrapped in an American flag, flanked by about 30 Toledo police officers, saluting and weeping,” the mayor said.
To honor the life and service of Officer Dia, Governor Mike DeWine has ordered flags in Lucas County and the statehouse lowered to half-staff, beginning Sunday, through the funeral service.
Neither Kral nor Kapszukiewicz took questions during the news conference. More information was expected to be provided at another news conference Monday.
