Nov. 15—A 77-year-old Dayton man charged Friday was shot by police in August after allegedly attacking an officer with a knife.
Otto Coleman will be arraigned Dec. 3 in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court on charges of assault as a repeat violent offender and resisting arrest, both felonies.
Coleman was initially in life-threatening condition after the Aug. 11 shooting but was stable by the next afternoon, Dayton Police Chief Kamran Afzal said previously.
The incident began shortly before 7 p.m. when someone 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.
Dispatch attempted to call the person back five times but was unable to obtain additional details. Afzal said dispatchers called for officers to respond after multiple attempts to recontact the caller.
Two officers arrived at the building, which is a mosque and residence, in the 700 block of North Broadway Street. One officer walked around the back and could be heard on CCTV asking if anyone had called the police.
As the officer walked through the backyard, he walked around a shed and found a man later identified as Coleman standing near the fence with a knife.
The officer ordered Coleman to drop the knife several times and began backing up as Coleman approached him, according to body camera footage. Coleman then began running toward the officer, who then shot him, police said.
Coleman was hit in the chest, arm and leg, Afzal said.
The officer radioed about the shooting at 8:10 p.m. and asked for medics. A minute later, the dispatcher issued a 99 signal, or called for officer assistance.
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 the crew 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 in the area that they could approach. Medics left at 8:31 p.m. to take him to a Miami Valley Hospital.
Afzal noted that officers went to the scene without any indication that anything was unusual.
When the police know in advance that someone is armed, officers can use other means, such as a drone.
“In this case, we didn’t know what we had,” Afzal said.
Coleman was previously convicted of attempted murder in Maryland in 1973. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity in an assault on a peace officer case in 2010, according to Montgomery County Common Pleas court records.
In 2011, he was sentenced to 12.5 years in prison for aggravated robbery, assault on a peace officer and vandalism.
Coleman had been on parole for that case since June 2023 and is being held at Lorain Correctional Institution for a parole violation, Ohio Department of Rehabilitation & Correction records show.
A 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 compliments, a letter of appreciation and no reprimands.
