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Man in custody after standoff
By jeanne starmack
campbell
A standoff that began Monday night with hostages ended peacefully Tuesday morning after police removed a suspect from his Coitsville Road home.
Rudy Klein, 43, armed with a shotgun, terrorized his wife and two teenage sons beginning around 10:15 p.m. Monday, Campbell Detective Sgt. John Rusnak said Tuesday.
Rusnak said that after the 911 call, Coitsville police helped city officers set up a perimeter around 330 Coitsville Road. A tense rescue effort followed in which city police officers got the wife and sons out of a second-floor bedroom with a ladder propped against the front-porch roof.
Rusnak said Sgt. Drew Rauzan distracted Klein by shouting to him while Officer John Gulu went into the bedroom to guard the family while they escaped.
Officers Josh Tedesco, Ryan Bloomer and Joe Pavlansky helped the family down the ladder.
“Those guys staging the rescue — that’s an absolute act of valor,” Rusnak said. “Those guys put themselves in harm’s way.”
Rusnak said the local FBI Violent Crimes Task Force and the Mahoning Valley Crisis Intervention Unit assisted. An FBI task force from Cleveland also arrived later.
Once the family was safe, the Crisis Intervention Unit negotiated with Klein throughout the night until the situation was resolved around 8:30 a.m., Rusnak said.
“The subject was threatening suicide and suicide-by-cop,” Rusnak said.
A neighbor, Joseph Capezzuto, said officers brought Klein out of the house.
Klein was taken to St. Elizabeth Health Center for an evaluation, Rusnak said.
Neighbors said police had blocked off the street during the crisis.
“Cops told people to stay inside,” Capezzuto said.
Capezzuto described Klein’s wife as “nice.”
“I saw her outside with the blanket,” he said. “They put her in the SWAT truck.”
Capezzuto said flash-bang grenades police used to distract Klein startled his wife.
“I’m not afraid of that. I was in the service,” he said.
Rusnak said the family was kept at the scene during the confrontation, and once they were out of the house, they provided useful information such as phone numbers for negotiators.
The flash-bangs, Rusnak said, were used at the end before Klein was taken into custody. The family was at their home Tuesday morning, but declined to speak about what had happened.
A relative who was with them said the family is traumatized but will be OK.
Rusnak said that once Klein was released from the hospital, he would be taken to the Mahoning County jail without bond until his arraignment in Campbell Municipal Court on Friday morning.
He said Klein would be charged with three counts of domestic violence.
Other charges are pending, he said.