After a police shooting: medical aid, investigation, oversight and wellness

For the eleventh class, Desjardins invites two guests: paramedic Joan Ivey, who was the first paramedic to reach Dale Vossberg at the Kettle Creek Road boat launch, and Sergeant Lisa Haddad, who was the patrol supervisor that night. Officer Femi Okeke agreed to let the class study the incident but did not want to attend. 'He has told the story enough times,' Haddad says. 'To investigators, to a psychologist, to his family. He asked me to tell you one thing: the hardest part was not the shooting. It was the next six weeks.'

This lesson follows what happens after a police officer fires at a person: the first minutes, when the priority is to make the scene safe and save life; the hours that follow, when the scene becomes evidence; and the weeks and months of investigation, oversight and recovery. The same process applies whether the person is killed, injured or not struck at all.

The first minutes at Kettle Creek Road

The class works through the timeline from the radio recordings, the cameras and the reports. At 2:41 a.m. on Sunday, August 23, 2026, Carla Mott called 911 to report that her brother, Dale Vossberg, forty-six, had been drinking, had argued with her husband in their driveway and had pointed a hunting rifle at him before driving off in his pickup. At 2:58, Okeke, driving alone, found the pickup parked in the boat launch lot at the end of Kettle Creek Road. He stopped well back on the road, behind his engine block, and called for backup. At 3:06, Coutu arrived and parked beside him. For about five minutes, Okeke talked to Vossberg over the car's loudspeaker and then in his own voice, asking him to come out without the rifle. At about 3:09, Vossberg got out of the pickup holding the rifle and shouted at the officers to leave.

At 3:11:02, Vossberg raised the rifle and fired one round, which struck the front of Okeke's patrol car. Okeke fired three rounds in about two seconds. Vossberg was struck once in the upper leg, fell and dropped the rifle on the gravel. Okeke stopped firing. At 3:11:20 he radioed that shots had been fired, that a man was down and that an ambulance was needed. Coutu kept her eyes on Vossberg and the rifle, and both officers stayed behind cover and told him to stay down and not reach for it.

Sergeant Haddad and Officer Sofia Reyes arrived at 3:15. The four officers moved forward together as a team, Reyes secured the rifle and moved it well away, and Coutu began first aid. She applied a tourniquet from her trauma kit above the wound at 3:16, while Okeke pressed on the wound and talked to Vossberg to keep him calm. Paramedics, who had been asked to wait nearby until the scene was safe, reached Vossberg at 3:21. Ivey tells the class that the tourniquet was applied well and probably prevented serious blood loss. Vossberg was taken to Port Ardent General Hospital at 3:38, had surgery and survived.

The duty to render aid

Once the threat has ended and it is safe to do so, officers must make sure that injured people get medical help as quickly as possible, including the person they shot. In the United States, many state laws and agency policies impose a duty to render aid, and the Department of Justice's 2022 use-of-force policy requires federal officers to request or provide medical aid where needed. Port Ardent's policy requires officers to summon medical help immediately and to provide first aid within their training once the scene is safe. Many services now issue trauma kits with tourniquets and pressure dressings to every patrol officer and train them to use them, because the minutes before paramedics arrive can decide whether a person lives.

Ivey adds a paramedic's perspective. 'We need three things from police,' she says. 'Tell us early, make the scene safe enough for us to come in, and tell us what you have done. A tourniquet with the time written on it is the best handover I can get.' Coutu had written 3:16 on the tourniquet's tab with a marker.

Securing the scene and the evidence

As soon as the injured person is in the paramedics' care, the scene becomes the site of a serious investigation. Haddad's job as the supervisor was to protect the evidence until investigators arrived. She had the area taped off, posted an officer to keep a log of everyone who entered, made sure nothing was moved except as needed for first aid, and noted where the rifle had been before Reyes moved it. She made sure no officer handled or unloaded Okeke's pistol, which stayed in his holster until the investigators took custody of it, with the magazines, so that the remaining rounds could be counted. Spent cases, the rifle and the damaged patrol car were left for the forensic team.

Haddad also separated the officers. Okeke and Coutu were driven to the station in different cars and kept apart until investigators had spoken to them, so that each officer's memory would not be shaped by the other's. A peer support officer stayed with Okeke. Haddad tells the class that this separation is not a sign of suspicion. 'Your memory after something like that is fragile,' she says. 'Investigators need what you saw, not a version you built together in the car.'

Body-worn camera recordings were secured immediately. Coutu had started her camera when she was dispatched. Okeke's camera started about forty seconds after he stopped his car, so it missed his first radio call but captured everything from Vossberg's first appearance onward. The late activation became one of the review points in Lesson 12.

Who investigates

In Ohio, most police shootings are investigated by the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, part of the Attorney General's office, at the request of the local agency. The bureau's officer-involved critical incident team investigated 329 such incidents between January 2019 and the end of 2024. The bureau does not decide whether the officer acted lawfully. It gathers the evidence and sends a final report to the prosecutor with jurisdiction, usually the county prosecutor, who may decline to bring charges, present the case to a grand jury or appoint a special prosecutor. Port Ardent's chief requested the bureau at 3:40 a.m., and its agents arrived at 5:15. Okeke, who like any person has a constitutional right not to incriminate himself, gave a voluntary recorded interview to the bureau on August 27, with his attorney present. Coutu and Haddad were interviewed on August 24.

The bureau sent its final report to the Ardent County Prosecutor on September 30, 2026. On October 21, the prosecutor presented the case to a grand jury, which declined to indict Okeke. The department's own administrative review, which looks at policy and training rather than criminal law, was completed on November 6 and found that the shooting was within policy, with two training points. Under the Supreme Court's decision in Garrity v. New Jersey (1967), statements that an officer is compelled to give in an administrative investigation cannot be used against the officer in a criminal prosecution, so agencies usually wait for the criminal investigation to finish before compelling an interview. Port Ardent's Civilian Police Review Board is scheduled to review the case at its December meeting.

Reviewers read a timeline like this in two directions. Looking forward from the shots, they ask whether each step of medical aid followed as quickly as the scene allowed: the call for an ambulance came almost at once, and the tourniquet went on as soon as the officers judged it safe to approach. Looking back from the shots, they ask how long officers had to plan before the confrontation, which in this incident was about thirteen minutes from the first officer's arrival. Both directions matter, because a good outcome after the shots does not excuse a poor approach, and a careful approach does not excuse slow first aid.

The timeline shows that the ambulance was requested within twenty seconds of the shots, the tourniquet was applied within five minutes and paramedics reached Vossberg within ten. Reviewers look at intervals like these to see whether medical aid was summoned and given promptly, and whether anything delayed it.

The officer after a shooting

Haddad returns to Okeke's message about the next six weeks. Officers who have fired at a person commonly experience strong reactions in the days and weeks that follow, whether or not anyone was killed. These can include trouble sleeping, replaying the event, feeling numb or on edge, guilt, anger, fear about the investigation, and worry about how colleagues, family and the public see them. For most officers these reactions fade over weeks with support. For some they last longer, and some develop post-traumatic stress injuries, depression or problems with alcohol.

Police services now have procedures meant to support officers after a shooting. At Port Ardent, an officer who fires at a person is relieved of patrol duty for at least three days, which is not a punishment, and must meet a psychologist with experience in police trauma within seventy-two hours. The meeting is confidential and is not a fitness evaluation. A peer support officer, a colleague trained to listen and to connect officers to help, is assigned to the officer and their family. The officer returns to work gradually, usually starting with administrative duties and then range time with an instructor before going back on patrol. Okeke returned to patrol on September 21, after meeting the psychologist four times, and he still checks in with his peer support officer.

Ohio law, under a change that took effect in 2021, created a way for first responders disabled by post-traumatic stress disorder without a physical injury to receive compensation, and many agencies also provide employee assistance programs and peer support. Haddad says that the most important support often comes from colleagues and supervisors who check in, treat the officer normally and do not gossip. She also reminds the class that Coutu, who did not fire, and the other officers at the scene can be affected too. Anyone who is struggling can call or text 988 at any time.

Accountability and support together

Students sometimes see a tension between investigating an officer and supporting them. Desjardins says that, in a healthy system, the two go together. The public is entitled to a full, independent investigation of every police shooting, and officers are entitled to fair treatment, legal advice and care for their health while it happens. Services that rush to defend officers before the facts are known lose public trust. Services that abandon officers during an investigation lose their officers. 'Investigate fully and support fully,' Desjardins says. 'Those are not opposites.'