In memory of Officer Joshua Miktarian

On Sunday night Jonathan and I were watching the 11:00 news and they were talking about a fallen police officer in Twinsburg that was murdered on a routine traffic stop. They talked briefly about the man and the situation which was still under investigation. The news anchor said that he was only 33, had a 3 month old baby girl and his name was Joshua Miktarian. The first thing that popped into my head was his age, he was so young and the same age as Jonathan. Jonathan on the other hand sat up suddenly in bed and said "Oh my God did they say Josh Miktarian?". We rewound the tivo and sure enough the fallen officer was Josh. Jonathan gasped and fell silent for a moment, "I grew up with him," he said, "We were great friends from grade school into high school."

My heart sank realizing that this once strange man on the television screen that I felt so sad for had now made an impact so close to home. I had only just begun to realize just how close to home it would be.

Josh and Jonathan grew up together. They used to hang out all the time and run in the same crowd. They both loved sports and enjoyed baseball. They rode around Tallmadge on their mopeds together and spent many summers just hanging out. Josh lived down the street from Jonathan as a kid and as time has passed he continued to live down the street as an adult. Ironically both Josh and Jonathan purchased the house they grew up in so they still both lived just around the corner from one another. Josh's house is less then 1/4 mile from ours. When we would go to the recreation center and we would always see his police car parked in his driveway. K-9 was marked on the side.

I vaguely remember Jonathan mentioning he grew up with him when I inquired about the police car in the driveway one day. As we sat in bed I asked why he was still not as close to him as he once was. He said that Josh had gotten a baseball injury that had prevented him from playing sports. He told me their close friendship changed directions as Josh got involved with other activities at school since he could not participate in sports anymore. Although Jonathan would see Josh out in his yard often mowing the lawn he would stop and say hello. As time passed and Josh joined the police force, he was an 11 year veteran, Jonathan did not see him as much because he worked the night shift. But that never stopped the memories of the great times they had together as kids.

As we sat and watched the news story again it was hard to believe that someone so young and so close to home had an untimely death doing one of the things he loved the most. They announced a vigil that would be held at Twinsburg city hall the next day. We both decided to go. Jonathan hated the idea of telling his mom about all this, "She's going to cry," he said. For the remainder of the night we lied in bed realizing just how fragile life is and that you never know when your time to go may be.

The next morning I headed out the door in a rush. I had to be at work early for a meeting. Jonathan was sad, I could tell. The shock of it all was still settling in. When I arrived at work I grabbed a newspaper and took the front page that was covered with Josh's story. It was a routine traffic stop. He pulled a car over for loud music and suspicion of DUI at 1:54, he called in the car's license plate. A few minutes later he called for backup. When dispatch attempted to reach him again, there was not response. When back up arrived he was life flighted to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. I tucked the newspaper into my bag and called Jonathan later in the day to tell him I was saving it for him. He was planning on getting out of work early so we could head up to Twinsburg for the vigil.

That evening when I arrived home I turned on the computer to try and find an address for the city hall so we could put it into our GPS system. Jonathan's mom was going with us and I had stopped at the store to pick up a folding chair for her and 3 candles. I went to Ohio.com, the Akron Beacon Journal website to get the details. As the web page loaded the headline read 'Self defense claim in officer slaying.' My mouth dropped and my heart sank. How could someone plead self defense? I read on and the details only became more sickening. Josh was shot 4 times in the head, his gun was still holstered and the suspect was arrested an hour later at his home with one hand cuff still on. His dog was in the back seat of his cruiser the whole time. Jonathan got home and met me upstairs as we continued to read. I felt ill and enraged at the article. It made no sense, none of it.

We headed toward the vigil and the thought of the article remained on my mind. Traffic in Twinsburg was backed up due to the surmounting amount of people that were coming to pay their respects for this fallen hero. Jonathan dropped his mom and I off close to the site and he went to park. Hundreds of people were there. I got mom situated as I observed those around us. Young and old, white and black, friends and strangers were all there to mourn the loss of this man. When Jonathan found us I asked him if he would like to get closer and to see if we could perhaps find Josh's family.

We headed into the crowd passing the hand crafted memorial that now surrounded the city hall sign. Flowers, pictures and letters all surrounded this area. Through the crowd I noticed a small group of people, a shorter woman in white was being hugged and visibly sobbing. I leaned over and pointed her our to Jonathan asking if that could be his mom. Jonathan gazed over the crowd watching the small group of people closely and he then recognized Josh's brother Paul who has cerebral palsy. That was them. My heart broke even more watching a family in such grief for losing their son, husband and father to such and untimely death.

We moved in closer making our way through some of the crowd. The vigil was about to begin so we stopped as we were heading the back way around the group of ever growing people. We stood in a group of officers that were from all different communities. As the people began to speak about Josh I could not help but to cry. I watched his family as they tried to be strong but you could tell they were devastated. The speakers that came that broke down into tears. And the strangers that spoke that were there to just say thank you. I asked Jonathan if he wanted to go and speak with the family but I could tell that his heart was broken too and that he knew he would be unable to hold back the tears if he did.

We headed back towards mom and gathered up our things preparing to go. We decided we would go to the calling hours on Thursday. We gave our candles to those who had none and walked slowly back to the car. We made it back to the house emotionally saddened. Jonathan and I headed out into the front yard lowering our flag to half staff in respect for this fallen officer and friend. We watched the vigil on the nightly news and spoke a little more about the outrage of the self defense theory. We will watch this trial closely and put our faith into the judicial system that justice will prevail for his family and this fallen officer.