Probe into officer’s shooting ends

By Ed Runyan

Forensics determined that the shot that hit the officer’s vest was fired from 4 feet away or less.

WARREN — A volunteer Newton Township police officer said he was shot in his bulletproof vest July 7 by an unknown assailant, but an assortment of his statements are not supported by evidence, investigators said.

Sheriff Thomas Altiere and sheriff’s Detective Sgt. Peter Pizzulo said the inconsistencies from Tom Colosimo, 35, in his account of events and the way his account differs from witnesses’ have led them to close their investigation into the case unless further information becomes available.

No charges have been filed against Colosimo, of Newton Falls, and none are planned, Altiere said.

Colosimo worked about 20 hours per week as a patrolman for the township department. He also volunteers as a reserve officer with the West Farmington Police Department and headed up the Trumbull County Child Abduction Response Team. He is working for none of those agencies at this time.

He resigned from the West Farmington department and the CART team and is on leave from Newton Township, officials said.

A sheriff’s department press release says investigators “began to question the validity of Officer Colosimo’s account of events” after searching the area and canvassing the neighborhood where it happened. No suspect in the shooting was ever located.

Colosimo said he was on patrol about 3:30 p.m. on Miller-Graber Road near an access road to a cell phone tower when he observed a suspect who he believed might be trying to steal copper from railroad tracks nearby.

Colosimo said he could see the individual from Miller-Graber Road, but when an investigator questioned how that was possible with high grass blocking the view, he changed his story to say that he saw the individual after he had driven onto the access road, which Altiere said was also not possible.

Another problem with his story is that he said the suspect shot at him, causing him to return fire two times, Altiere said.

The four witnesses nearby who heard shots, however, reported hearing two shots, not three, Altiere said.

When the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation provided results of their testing on the vest and Colosimo’s clothing, they determined that the shot that hit his vest came from no more than 4 feet away, not the 17 feet Colosimo said, Altiere said.

On July 15, Colosimo was confronted with the conflicting information, and he agreed to take a lie-detector test. But on two occasions, he walked out of the examination before the test could be completed.

“For these reasons, we cannot determine if this did or did not happen,” Altiere said during a press conference at his office Friday. “It’s up to you to decide,” he said to reporters.

BCI said the bullet in the vest was from either a .38-caliber or 9-millimeter bullet that did not match the gun Colosimo was using that day. Colosimo was using a .45-caliber handgun, Altiere said.

Investigators have not determined what gun fired the bullet in the vest, though Colosimo’s home was searched Wednesday to determine whether Colosimo owned a .38-caliber or 9-millimeter weapon. None was found, Pizzulo said.

Tom Thompson, Newton Township’s police chief since last fall, said he had only learned the results of the sheriff’s department investigation Friday morning. He said he would take the information back to the Newton Township trustees and their legal adviser, Atty. Mark Finamore, to determine whether they would take any action against Colosimo.

He said Colosimo had worked as a reserve officer in the township for about a year.

In the two months leading up to the shooting, Colosimo was involved in the destruction of police cruisers in both Newton Township and West Farmington village.

The township incident involved a cruiser he parked on the same railroad tracks near Miller-Graber Road as the shooting. That cruiser was destroyed when he took off on foot looking for copper thieves May 12, and a train came along and hit the cruiser.

On June 14, he wrecked a West Farmington cruiser on a curve on Old State Road in Geauga County while traveling to Middlefield for gasoline. He said he swerved to avoid an oncoming car in his lane, but troopers from the Ohio State Highway Patrol in Chardon cited him for failure to control, and Colosimo later pleaded guilty to speeding.

runyan@vindy.com