Coleman initially was in life-threatening condition following the Aug. 11 shooting but was stable by the following afternoon, Dayton police Chief Kamran Afzal said previously.
The incident started shortly before 7 p.m. when a person called the Montgomery County Regional Dispatch Center. Afzal said the call appeared to come from Summit Behavioral Healthcare in Cincinnati and it was not clear what the caller was trying to report.
Credit: Jim Noelker
Credit: Jim Noelker
Dispatchers tried five times to call the person back but were unable to get additional details. Afzal said dispatchers put the call in for officers to respond after multiple attempts to contact the caller again.
Two officers arrived at the building, which is a mosque and residence, in the 700 block of North Broadway Street. One officer went around the back and could be heard on body camera footage asking whether someone had called police.
As the officer walked through the backyard, he went around a shed and found a man later identified as Coleman with a knife standing near the fence.
The officer ordered Coleman to drop the knife several times and began to back up as Coleman approached him, according to body camera footage. Coleman then started running toward the officer, who then shot him, police said.
Credit: Jim Noelker
Credit: Jim Noelker
Coleman was hit in the chest, arm and leg, Afzal said.
The officer radioed dispatch about the shooting at 8:10 p.m. and requested medics. Dispatch issued a Signal 99, or call for officer assistance, a minute later.
Coleman continued to hold the knife and ignored commands to drop it after the shooting, Afzal said.
Officers requested less lethal force at 8:14 p.m. and crews arrived within two minutes.
After about 13 minutes, police notified crews they were going in with a shield and then took the knife from Coleman, the chief said.
He was taken into custody and officers told medics staging in the area they could approach. Medics left at 8:31 p.m. to take him to a Miami Valley Hospital.
Afzal noted officers went to the scene without any indication there was anything out of the ordinary.
When police know in advance that a person is armed, officers can use other methods, such as a drone.
“In this case we didn’t know what we had,” Afzal said.
Credit: Ohio Department of Rehabilitation & Correction
Credit: Ohio Department of Rehabilitation & Correction
Coleman previously was convicted of attempted murder in Maryland in 1973. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity in a 2010 assault on a peace officer case, according to Montgomery County Common Pleas court records.
In 2011, he was sentenced to 12½ years in prison for aggravated robbery, assault on a peace officer and vandalism.
Coleman had been on parole since June 2023 for that case and is incarcerated at the Lorain Correctional Institution for a parole violation, online Ohio Department of Rehabilitation & Correction records show.
A county grand jury on Oct. 17 declined to indict the officer who shot Coleman. The officer, whose name has not been released, has been with the Dayton Police Department for two years. As of August, he had received two written commendations, a letter of appreciation and no reprimands.
Credit: Jim Noelker
Credit: Jim Noelker
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