DAYTON — More people are carrying guns, and it’s putting officers in situations where they must use their service weapons.
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News Center 7 has reported on dozens of similar incidents in the last few years.
Now, I-Team Investigative reporter Mike Campbell is taking an in-depth look at these shootings through the eyes of the officers who have been through this.
They told News Center 7 they face second-guessing their decisions before they even have a chance to deal with their own emotions about a life-or-death situation.
“With body cameras, my incident was completely caught on video,” Former Dayton Police Officer Thadeu Holloway said.
He was involved in a shooting in September of 2021, where a man passing fraudulent checks punched Holloway as he walked up.
Holloway then deployed his taser, but the man managed to pull out a gun and shot him.
Holloway said he returned fire, then called for help for himself and the man, while badly bleeding.
“The biggest thing, the negative thing I’ve heard people say is ‘why didn’t I see the gun?’”
He said he did see something in the man’s hand, but couldn’t be sure what it was.
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“Had it not been a gun and I pulled out my gun and shot him, it would have looked like I was standing over him, executing him,” Holloway said.
Both Holloway and the man survived critical injuries, but the officer went immediately on administrative and medical leave.
The same thing happened to Chris Cornwell, who is a former Dayton Police Officer.
“I was involved in two fatal shootings and was also shot in the line of duty,” Cornwell said.
He was a rookie in 2003 when he was involved in a deadly shooting, just seven months on the job.
A man fired through a Dayton door he knocked on, knocking him down with the impact on his ballistic vest.
Cornwell was forced to use deadly force in return.
He had another deadly use of force five years later, working as a sheriff’s deputy.
He went through administrative leaves and internal investigations, both times grand juries found him to have acted correctly.
“Went through the lawsuit for the first shooting and then went through the depositions and the beginning of the lawsuit for the shooting,” Cornwell said.
He experienced symptoms of PTSD and decided to leave law enforcement.
“None of us sign up for this job wanting to go in and ever have to take somebody’s life. In fact, it’s the exact opposite,” Cornwell said. “We want to save as many lives as possible.”
“What they carry with them after an officer-involved shooting is just immeasurable, tragic. The self-blame, the guilt, the anxiety,” Psychologist Dr. Kathy Platoni said.
Officer-involved situations often have a lot of social and political overtones, Platoni said, adding police basically go through public opinion trials before they get a chance to deal with the emotional fallout.
“You can’t be prepared for this. You can go through every scenario imaginable in your training, but everyone is different,” she said.
It’s why officers involved in shootings need counseling from psychologists like Platoni. They also need support from their own departments.
Sgt. Kyle Thomas, President of the Dayton FOP Union, said, “It should never be the burden of the employee to get the help and the resources that they need.”
They work to make sure the department and the city provide the time off, medical care, and counseling needed after an officer fires their weapon.
“It just ties into the big package of how stressful and how draining this profession can be on you, as much as it is rewarding,” Thomas said.
Not every officer can return to work after an on-duty shooting.
Cornwell left the field after his experiences, and Holloway had to retire for medical reasons.
Holloway admits that he had to deal with anger over his career being cut short. He was asked if he would do it all again and be a police officer. He said, “In a heartbeat.”
Platoni has provided counseling and critical incident debriefings for Dayton Police Department officers since 2006.
She said if an officer-involved incident forces someone to give up their life’s dream of being a police officer, that may be the toughest emotional step of all.
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