43
Prosecutor’s office clears officers in killing of Southington man
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office has cleared deputies with the Trumbull County Sheriff’s Office and officers of the Braceville Police Department of any wrongdoing in the officer-involved shooting death of Charles D. Crandall, 76, in a gunfight at Crandall’s Southington home July 14.
“This was a textbook example of officers responding to a violent situation,” according to a statement from the prosecutor’s office.
The investigation of the shooting was carried out by about a dozen agents with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the statement says.
Deputies Dario Poledica and Dallas Young fired shots at Crandall – three by Poledica and two by Young. The statement doesn’t say whose shots killed Crandall, and that information was not available Tuesday.
But the press release says Crandall fired one shot from a handgun he was carrying when he answered the door at 11 a.m. at his unkempt, rural home at 2749 Phalanx Mills Road.
The prosecutor’s office also released a video from the body camera of Braceville Sgt. Joshua Rudesill that shows how the shooting unfolded.
It shows Poledica knocking at the front door and getting no response, then walking away from the home and back toward Sgt. Rudesill, who noticed that someone appeared at the door.
Nearly a minute goes by before Sgt. Rudesill calls out, “He’s got a gun,” then “Gun, gun gun!” and also yells commands to Crandall: “Sir, put the gun down! Put it down!”
Poledica also yells to Crandall five times: “Put the gun down.”
Crandall was shot three times on the screened porch, the statement says.
Crandall’s pistol had one spent round in the cylinder and eight unfired rounds, the statement says. A rifle nearby also had been fired three times, apparently at Crandall’s neighbor, James Kovar, the statement says.
Kovar made the 911 call that brought the deputies and police to Crandall’s home, saying he had gone there to take Crandall to town to run errands, but Crandall inexplicably fired several shots at him.
“Kovar told investigators he had known Crandall his whole life. Kovar stated that Crandall’s father was killed when Crandall was young, and his mother wanted a girl, so she often dressed Crandall as a girl,” the statement said.
It continued: “Kovar told investigators that Crandall would sometimes dress as a woman. Kovar told investigators he would not take Crandall to town if he was dressed as a woman.”
Moments after the gunfire ended, Polica could be heard on the body camera saying he shot at a woman.
But Rudesill corrected him soon afterward, saying it was a man. Crandall, dressed as a woman, was the only person at the home, prosecutors said.
Two shell casings were found for the rifle, but investigators from BCI believe Crandall fired three at Kovar because Kovar’s pickup truck had three bullet holes in it consistent with Crandall’s rifle, the statement says.
“There is no question that Deputy Poledico acted in self-defense,” the statement says. “Therefore, clearly Deputy Poledica was properly responding to an emergency call involving the felonious assault” of Kovar.
There will be no presentment of charges to a grand jury in the matter “as the only possible crimes were committed by the deceased,” the statement says.