ALLIANCE – It appears that someone would die in a cramped upstairs apartment on South Linden Avenue on Sunday afternoon.
The only question was: who?
It was George “Joe” Appleby or his live-in girlfriend, Anita Tucker.
That’s what the Alliance police officers had to deal with when they arrived shortly after 1:39 p.m. to a report of domestic violence. A neighbor in the three-story, two-story building had called 911 to say that Appleby had slit Tucker’s throat with a knife and then pulled her back. inside from a balcony.
Just before that call, another neighbor, Naomi Brackin, who lives in the lower floor, saw blood on 68-year-old Tucker, as Brackin watched from the backyard under the balcony.
She knew that Appleby had abused Tucker before – he was convicted of domestic violence last year – but this was frightening.
“He said, ‘I’m going to kill that bitch!'” Brackin recalled.
Christopher “Whitey” White, a friend of Brackin’s, ran up the wobbly outdoor wooden stairs to the second floor to try to intervene. He banged on the door Appleby had slammed to those below.
“Don’t do it Joep!” White screamed over and over. “Do not do it!”
Police advancing; Appleby withdraws
The police arrived. They went upstairs.
They smashed a door window, unlocked it from the inside and entered, Lieutenant Don Wensel said. He said 59-year-old Appleby still had the knife to Tucker’s throat.
And the six-foot-tall, 300-pound Appleby, known to police for violent incidents over a few decades, used little Tucker as a kind of human shield against the police.
“He tried to hide behind her … he kept backing up,” Wensel said.
Officers, Wensel said, told Appleby to drop the knife.
Instead, he backed past the bathroom into a bedroom, where he closed and locked the door. Agents – there were now five on the scene – broke it open. Again the knife was pressed against Tucker’s throat. Again, Wensel said, Appleby wouldn’t drop it.
An officer in the room noticed a momentary physical separation between Appleby and his shield, Tucker.
“He saw his chance and grabbed it,” Wensel explained.
The officer fired his pistol, then fired a second time.
Appleby fell to the ground and was later pronounced dead there.
Tucker said Appleby got what he deserved
Tucker was taken to the hospital where she received several stitches in two different places on the front of her neck, as well as other minor cuts. She spent Sunday night in Akron with her sister before returning to Alliance on Labor Day, where she will stay with her neighbor Brackin.
“I don’t wish death on anyone, but (Appleby) deserved what he got. … He paid for what he did to me,” she said.
Alliance police asked the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigig to investigate. Wensel said it is the department’s policy to hand over shootings involving officers to an outside third party.
“However, this is the first in my 19 years,” he added.
Wensel refused to identify the officer who fired. He has been with the department for about 2 1/2 years now and is on paid time off as per policy. Wensel said he viewed CCTV footage of the shooting.
“It all happened so fast,” he said.
Wensel said he’s pretty sure what would have happened to Tucker if the officer hadn’t shot Appleby.
“I think she would be dead,” he said.
Reach Tim at 330-580-8333 [email protected] Twitter: @tbotosRE
This article originally appeared in The Repository: Alliance police shoot George Appleby who slit his girlfriend’s throat
