OH · September 3, 2023
The Moment Officers Force the Door
Officers reach a locked bedroom door in Alliance, Ohio, where a man is holding a woman hostage with a knife to her throat, and this police bodycam footage follows the roughly four and a half minutes it takes them to decide what to do about it.
Reconstructed timeline
Times from synchronized camera clocks and dispatch records.
12:00 AM
Morning captivity (report-only, off-camera)
Per Anita Tucker's later account, she and Appleby woke that morning and Appleby began smoking methamphetamine, became agitated and angry, and would not let her leave the bedroom for at least two hours. Time approximate; no camera captured this.
1:39 PM
Appleby cuts Tucker's throat on the balcony (report-only, off-camera)
Per Tucker and neighbor Naomi Bracken, Appleby retrieved a large knife, put it to Tucker's throat with a hand over her mouth, said he would kill her and then himself, dragged her onto the exterior balcony railing and cut her throat, then dragged her back inside as police were being called. Time…
1:39 PM
911 call received
Neighbor Carla West-Cameron calls 911; the original CAD narrative reads 'george appleby has a knife to anita's throat caller states he has cut her throat.' Call received 13:39:57; Rose (unit 048) dispatched and arriving.
1:41 PM
Ptl. Rose first on scene, directed to rear stairs
Ptl. Rose (unit 0048, arrived ~13:41:59 per CAD) is first to arrive; a woman in the driveway and bystanders at the rear point him to the back exterior staircase and tell him he will 'have to shoot him.' Rose draws his duty pistol and goes up the stairs.
1:41 PM
Rose sees knife to throat through the door, breaks glass and enters
At the top of the stairs Rose looks through the door window and sees Appleby behind Tucker with a knife pressed to her throat, using her as a human shield; he announces police and orders the knife dropped. Appleby walks backward with Tucker into the apartment. The door is locked, so Rose breaks…
1:43 PM
Officers stack on the locked bedroom door; Appleby barricaded with hostage
Rose works through the house and pinpoints the rear bedroom, door locked. Sgt. Minich arrives; kicking fails because the door opens outward. Officers order Appleby to unlock, drop the knife and come out with hands up - repeated roughly nineteen times per the OOCIC review. Tucker's voice is never…
1:45 PM
'If you walk away, I'll quit' - standoff at the door
Through the locked door Appleby tells officers that if they leave he will come out ('If you walk away, I'll quit'). Officers refuse to leave and keep ordering him out. Toussant arrives with a .223 patrol carbine and takes point at the door; Tallman brings the halligan tool.
1:47 PM
Minich breaches the bedroom door with the halligan
Tallman's first attempts fail in the tight hallway, so he passes the halligan to Sgt. Minich, who smashes the locking mechanism and forces the door open. Toussant is off to the side of the door with his .223 rifle. Per OOCIC, Minich pried/opened the door at media ~00:05:22-00:05:48 on the involved…
1:47 PM
Det. Toussant fires two rounds; Appleby killed
The door opens onto Appleby standing behind Tucker with a large (machete-style) knife at her upper chest/abdomen; blood is running from her neck and her hand is on the blade. After two commands to raise his hands, which Appleby ignores while moving the knife upward toward her, Det. Toussant fires…
1:48 PM
Tucker pulled off Appleby and escorted out
Officers enter; Appleby is found shot in the head with the knife adjacent to his hand. Rose grabs Tucker and escorts her out and down the stairs; she has a bleeding laceration on the left side of her neck.
1:49 PM
Tucker handed to EMS on the front lawn
Tucker is passed to EMS/Alliance Fire on the front lawn; an officer gathers her name ('Anita'). She is transported to Alliance Community Hospital by EMT Ambulance Service and survives.
1:50 PM
Fire/EMS enter the bedroom; Appleby has no pulse
Tallman and Caughey secure the room and let Alliance Fire/Medics in to render aid to Appleby; EMS finds no pulse.
1:57 PM
Appleby's time of death (Dr. Lindenmeyer)
Alliance Fire/Medics phone Alliance Community Hospital; Dr. Lindenmeyer provides a time of death for Appleby of 1357 hrs. (The Stark County Coroner's investigator separately recorded Appleby pronounced deceased at 3:35 PM by Dr. Ronald Rusnak.)
2:05 PM
'I was just this close to the muzzle' - aftermath on the landing
Outside, an involved officer declines a medical check from fire personnel and remarks he was 'just this close to the muzzle' when it went off - a human aftermath beat during scene hold and officer separation.
4:29 PM
Stark County Coroner on scene
Per CAD, the coroner arrives on scene at 1629; a transport service later removes Appleby to the coroner's office.
5:04 PM
BCI interviews Tucker at the hospital
A BCI special agent (bodycam starting 17:04) interviews Anita Tucker at Alliance Community Hospital, explaining BCI investigates officer-involved shootings across Northeast Ohio, asking consent to search Appleby's apartment (and about her pets), and for permission to photograph her neck injury.…
12:00 AM
Detectives interview Tucker (DVD) and neighbor Bracken
Det. Welsh, with Dets. Johnson and Jones, interviews Anita Tucker (recorded and burned to DVD, logged into evidence); she recounts the captivity, throat-cutting and does not remember Appleby being shot. Naomi Bracken is also interviewed and reports Appleby's prior 'the cops will have to take me…
12:00 AM
BCI records interview with Sgt. Minich
BCI records a video and audio interview with Sgt. Stephen Minich as part of the officer-involved critical incident investigation.
12:00 AM
Stark County grand jury declines to indict; officers cleared
A Stark County grand jury declined to indict the Alliance officers in Appleby's fatal shooting, clearing them. Reported by the Canton Repository (same story covered the unrelated Canton shooting of Jeffrey Neff). Not in the BCI evidence file (latest document there is the 4/23/2024 OOCIC video…
Scene maps
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