Search fatalities

Luke J. Longeretta

Age : 32

Gender : Male

Race : White

Date : 09/25/2021

Location : Roscoe School, 301 North Whitewoman Street

City : Coshocton

County : Coshocton

State : Ohio

Agency : Coshocton County Sheriff’s Office

Officer(s) :Not Disclosed

Cause of Death : Gunshot

Event : Killed by police during arrest

OPEN RECORDS SUMMARY :

On 09/25/2021, a Coshocton County Sheriff’s Office deputy shot and killed 32-year-old Luke Joseph Longeretta during an attempted arrest inside the former Roscoe School at 301 North Whitewoman Street in Coshocton.
.
Deputies were dispatched shortly before 11 a.m. after receiving a report that a man was kicking in a door and entering the school building. When deputies arrived, they encountered Longeretta inside and attempted to take him into custody.
.
According to the Sheriff’s Office, a physical struggle followed. Police alleged that during that struggle Longeretta gained control of one deputy’s firearm. The Sheriff’s Office said Longeretta continued struggling with deputies and pointed the deputy’s gun toward them.
.
Police alleged that another deputy moved to avoid the gun and fired at Longeretta. Longeretta was struck. Deputies began CPR before emergency medical personnel transported him to Coshocton Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
.
The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation was called to conduct the investigation. The deputies involved were placed on administrative leave following the shooting, and the Sheriff’s Office initially said their names would be withheld pending the investigation.
.
Later reporting added significant forensic information. An autopsy determined that Longeretta died from multiple gunshot wounds. Toxicology testing detected methamphetamine and fentanyl in his system. Those findings were reported months after the shooting and do not independently establish the circumstances surrounding the deputy’s decision to fire.
.
Longeretta was a U.S. Air Force veteran who served from 2008 until 2016, including service in Afghanistan, Qatar and South Korea. He was married and the father of three children.
.
Despite the passage of nearly five years, the identity of the deputy who shot Longeretta remains remarkably difficult to establish from publicly accessible reporting. The initial promise that officer names were being withheld “pending the outcome of the investigation” did not result in readily accessible later reporting identifying the shooter.
.
No affirmative public evidence located for this update establishes that Longeretta’s family or an eyewitness publicly challenged the police account of the final struggle. No encounter-related wrongful-death or civil-rights lawsuit arising from Longeretta’s death was identified.
.
OFFICER BACKGROUND
The Coshocton County Sheriff’s Office deputy who shot Longeretta has not been publicly identified in the available records located for this update.
.
The institutional history of the Coshocton County Sheriff’s Office includes an earlier fatal shooting that resulted in extensive federal civil-rights litigation. Deputy Ernest Snyder shot and killed David W. Stahl II following a 2013 police pursuit. Stahl’s mother, Toni Stahl, subsequently sued Coshocton County, the sheriff and numerous sheriff’s deputies and emergency medical personnel under 42 U.S.C. §1983, alleging unlawful seizure, excessive force and deliberate indifference to her son’s serious medical needs.
.
The Stahl litigation examined not only the fatal gunfire but the tactics deputies used before and after the shooting. Deputies intentionally forced Stahl’s vehicle off the road through controlled contact. Snyder then fired through the vehicle’s windows. The lawsuit also challenged the medical response after Stahl was shot, including decisions concerning where he was transported for treatment.
.
The federal district court ultimately entered judgment for the county defendants on the federal claims, and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed in 2018. The appellate court concluded that Snyder’s shooting did not constitute unconstitutional excessive force because video evidence showed that Stahl was accelerating in Snyder’s direction immediately before the deputy fired.
.
That earlier case is relevant to Longeretta’s death because it demonstrates that the Sheriff’s Office had already faced federal litigation over a deputy’s fatal use of force and the subsequent treatment of the wounded person. It also illustrates the difference in transparency between the cases: Snyder was publicly identified and his actions examined extensively in federal court, while the deputy who killed Longeretta in 2021 remains unidentified in readily available public reporting.
.
The Sheriff’s Office was also undergoing a leadership transition at the time Longeretta was killed. James Crawford became sheriff in 2021 after Timothy Rogers, who had held the office since 2001. Longeretta was killed during Crawford’s first year as sheriff.
.

SOURCE LINKS :

https://www.whiznews.com/2021/09/26/man-killed-in-officer-involved-shooting-in-coshocton/
https://www.nbc4i.com/news/local-news/coshocton-county/man-killed-in-officer-involved-shooting-in-coshocton-county/
https://www.10tv.com/article/news/local/coshocton-county/man-killed-officer-involved-shooting/530-7a5bcb6b-2b3f-4c4e-9c7a-1a3c4c8e7d52
https://www.coshoctontribune.com/story/news/local/2022/04/07/toxicology-report-man-fatally-shot-officers-had-drugs-his-system/9489072002/
https://fox8.com/news/coshocton-sheriff-deputy-fatally-shoots-suspect-who-broke-into-school-took-deputys-firearm/
https://www.coshoctontribune.com/story/news/2021/09/25/one-man-dead-after-altercation-roscoe-school/5871283001/
https://www.whiznews.com/deputy-involved-shooting-in-coshocton/
https://www.fischerfuneralhome.com/obituaries/luke-longeretta
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca6/17-4112/17-4112-2018-10-31.html
https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/18a0544n-06.pdf