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Girard man killed after police chase

Law enforcement agencies remained at a property in the 1400 block of state Route 7 in Brookfield on Tuesday morning investigating an officer-involved fatal shooting of a Girard man who was the subject of an earlier chase across Trumbull County.

A news release from the Ohio State Highway Patrol and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation identified the dead man as Fred H. Wild III, 50, of Keefer Road, Girard. Wild was the only occupant of a stolen pickup truck that was attempting to flee the Route 7 property as police officers approached.

Officers from various departments were called to the Route 7 address about 1:04 a.m. to investigate a call about a man trespassing on private property.

Earlier on Monday night, a police chase that started in Lordstown ended at the railroad tracks on Merwin Chase Road in Brookfield, which is just southwest of the Route 7 property.

Reports state a suspect drove down the tracks and the vehicle got stuck. The suspect then got out of the truck and ran, and authorities called off the search until that early morning 911 call about the suspicious person on the Route 7 property.

Officers from Lordstown, Vienna, Warren Township and Brookfield, along with highway patrol troopers and sheriff’s deputies, were involved in the chase and the response to the Route 7 incident.

The report of the 911 call made by the concerned citizen stated a dangerous suspect was trespassing in a cabin. As officers approached the cabin, the man, identified as Wild, jumped out of the window and into a pickup truck that had a snowplow attached. The man failed to comply with verbal commands from police officers, the report states.

The man then drove the pickup at officers, and when he continued to ignore commands to stop was fired upon by multiple officers holding duty weapons, according to a news release from the highway patrol. The release did not say how many times Wild was struck.

Broookfield Fire Department’s emergency medical services responded to the scene, where Wild was pronounced dead. No officers were injured in the confrontation, the report states.

For several early morning hours, state Route 7 was closed north of Route 82 while investigators processed the scene. As of 8 a.m., a sole Trumbull County sheriff’s vehicle was sitting at the end of the driveway near Route 7. About 8:30 a.m. a state patrol aircraft flew overhead, circling the crime scene.

According to Steve Irwin, spokesman for Attorney General Dave Yost, the incident is under investigation by BCI agents.

County jail records show that Wild last was incarcerated for about seven weeks in December 2020 / January 2021 for a domestic violence, OVI case out of Girard Municipal Court. Another charge of failure to comply was filed against Wild by Liberty police for Monday’s chase involving a Dodge pickup that began in Lordstown and ended with the truck abandoned on railroad tracks near the Vienna / Brookfield line.

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