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Det. Dakota Wetzel |
BY JOHN A. DARNELL JR.
associate editor
The Boardman Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge #43, is coming to the aid of a fellow police officer from St. Clair Township in Columbiana who was shot in the head and faces a long recovery following an incident on Jan. 22.
According to St. Clair Township Police Chief Brian McKenzie, shortly after 2 p.m. police were called about a man who was possibly suicidal. Officers found a man named Joseph Como walking down the street and tried to talk to him. He almost immediately opened fire on the police. Det. Dakota Wetzel was shot in the head and a child, who was sitting in a nearby dental business, was struck by bullet fired by Como and died.
Wetzel, who is engaged to a woman from Boardman, is a three-year member of the St. Clair Township Police Department.
“As police officers, we know something like this could happen to a fellow officer. When it does, we stand with them.
“Det. Wetzel faces a long rehabilitation and we want to help him and his family,” Officer Joseph Lamping, president of Boardman FOP Lodge #43 said.
Monetary donations can be made to the Boardman FOP Lodge #43, 8299 Market St., Boardman, Ohio, 44512; or can be made in person at the Boardman Police Department’s records room, also at 8299 Market St.
Det. Wetzel, a Boardman resident, is currently receiving treatment at UMPC Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pa.
As Det. Wetzel was being moved to a safe place between to cars, the unimaginable happened. A woman came running out of a nearby dental office for children and teens where a 4-year-old girl from Steubenville had been struck by a stray bullet.
Det. Wetzel and the child, identified as Rosalie Martin, were flown by medical helicopter from the scene. Martin later died from her injuries, while Wetzel underwent emergency surgery to remove a portion of his skull and was later listed in stable condition.
Como, a schizophrenic, was shot and killed during the exchange of gunfire with police.
Det. Wetzel’s fiancé, Regan Lambert, asks for continued prayers for Martin’s family.
“My thoughts and prayers are with the family of Rosalie Martin, an absolute innocent party and a precious life stripped away from this world way too soon,” Lambert wrote.
While Det. Wetzel’s condition is listed as stable, Lambert posted that “the journey ahead...will be a long one and could look different every day.”
Det. Wetzel’s mother called her son’s survival “a miracle” as “a large bone fragment that entered his brain passed between two major vessels that are only two millimeters apart.”